Jon F. Watchko, MD
Professor Emeritus, Division of Newborn Medicine
Department of Pediatrics
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Abstract: Exchange transfusion (ET) is a procedure which couples alternating blood removal (exsanguination) with blood infusion (transfusion) to accomplish its beneficial effect. ET has been a mainstay of treating hazardous neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (severe jaundice) since Alfred P. Hart’s seminal use of the procedure in a newborn with familial icterus gravis neonatorum at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto in 1924. Its novel application by Hart at that time and at the Hospital for Sick Children was no accident. This presentation will commemorate the history of the development of ET as a viable treatment intervention and its original application to neonatal hyperbilirubinemia by Hart.

CF Reynolds History of Medicine Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Center for Bioethics & Health Law

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