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- a hollow muscular organ of vertebrate animals that by its rhythmic contraction acts as a force pump maintaining the circulation of the blood and that in the human adult is about five inches (13 centimeters) long and three and one half inches (9 centimeters) broad, is of conical form, is placed obliquely in the chest with the broad end upward and to the right and the apex opposite the interval between the cartilages of the fifth and sixth ribs on the left side, is enclosed in a serous pericardium, and consists as in other mammals and in birds of four chambers divided into an upper pair of rather thin-walled atria which receive blood from the veins and a lower pair of thick-walled ventricles into which the blood is forced and which in turn pump it into the arteries.

- a muscular organ responsible for pumping blood through the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions, or a similar structure in the annelidss, mollusks , and arthropods. The term cardiac (as in cardiology) means "related to the heart" and comes from the Greek καρδία, kardia, for "heart." The heart is composed of cardiac muscle, an involuntary muscle tissue which is found only within this organ. The average human heart beating at 72 BPM, will beat approximately 2.5 billion times during a lifetime spanning 66 years.

Blood takes about 20 seconds to circulate throughout the entire body.

The heart beats about 100,000 times a day.

The heart pumps approximately 2000 gallons of blood through the body a day.

A woman's heart weighs 8 ounces, and a man's heart weighs about 10 ounces.

Our research shows that the average time someone spends on the waiting list is around 266 days which is approximately 9 months.

The average price for a heart transplant is between $110,000 and $287,000.

Approximately 2,300 heart transplants are now performed each year.

There are over 150 heart transplant centers in the United States.

Because of the shortage of donated hearts, many people die while waiting for a transplant, this then leads people to resort to the black market to obtain a much needed organ.