Industry Literature

Utilization of organs to pediatric heart transplant recipients

While survival after pediatric heart transplantation (pHT) has improved in the past few decades and mechanical circulatory support is increasingly used to bridge children to transplantation, waiting list deaths remain a stark reality. To increase the donor pool, strategies such as ABO-incompatible transplantation or donation after cardiac death (DCD) have been attempted.1,2 The real question

Hypothermic perfusion of donor heart with a preservation solution supplemented by mesenchymal stem cells

Heart transplantation is the definitive treatment for end-stage heart failure. A shortage of donor hearts forced transplant programs to accept older donors and longer ischemic times. Previous studies have suggested that administration of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) or their conditioned medium (CM) protects the heart against ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI). We hypothesized that the preservation of

PREDICTED HEART MASS IS THE OPTIMAL METRIC FOR SIZE MATCH IN HEART TRANSPLANTATION

Traditionally, donor-recipient size match is assessed by body weight. We assessed the ability of 5 size match metrics – predicted heart mass (PHM), weight, height, body mass index (BMI) and body surface area (BSA) – to predict 1-year mortality after heart transplant and to assess the effect on size match on donor heart turn-down for

Clinical Implications of the Total Artificial Heart: Adversity and Progress

The history of the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart – temporary (TAH-t; SynCardia Systems, LLC, Tuscon, AZ) is a fascinating medical tale of success, failure and perseverance that has highlighted the lives of many physicians, scientists and patients while episodically consuming the attention of the public. Although, perhaps not as dramatic as its first implantation in

Center Volume and Post-Transplant Survival Among Adults with Congenital Heart Disease

Eighty five percent of congenital heart disease patients currently survive to adulthood due primarily to advancements in surgical treatments1. For these survivors with Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD), heart failure (HF) remains the leading cause of death2. Thus, the number of ACHD patients requiring heart transplantation (HT) continues to grow, and with this growth has

MICRORNAS SIGNATURES IN CARDIAC BIOPSIES AND DETECTION OF ALLOGRAFT REJECTION

Identification of heart transplant rejection currently rely on immunohistologic and immunohistochemistry. We aimed to identify specific sets of microRNAs (miRNAs) to characterize acute cellular (ACR), antibody-mediated (pAMR) and mixed (MR) rejections in monitoring formalinfixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) endomyocardial biopsies (EMBs) in heart transplant (HTx) patients.

Upcoming heart allocation policy change

If you are a patient on the national waiting list for a heart, your urgency for a transplant is currently based on three statuses:

  • 1A (most urgent)
  • 1B (somewhat urgent)
  • 2 (least urgent)

As we learn more about heart disease and successful treatment of it, the transplant community determined we needed more specific criteria that reflects a heart patient’s