Heart Transplantation with Donor Hearts Harvested After Circulatory Death

Heart Transplantation with Donor Hearts Harvested After Circulatory Death Conventionally, heart transplantation is done using donor hearts obtained after brain death of the donor. That means the heart was still beating at the time of harvesting. Now a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has reported on the utility of reanimated hearts obtained after circulatory death [1]. This if found to be useful in the long term, is certainly going to increase the pool of donor hearts available for the patients in the long waiting list for heart transplantation. It was a multi-center, randomized, non-inferiority trial with assignment in 3:1 ratio. Candidates in the circulatory death group would receive a heart after circulatory death of the donor or a heart from a donor after brain death if that heart was available first. This would protect the chance of a candidate to receive a heart transplant without unnecessary delay. Those in the brain death group would receive only a heart that has been preserved with the use of traditional cold storage after the brain death of the donor. Analysis of 166 transplant recipients were done in the as-treated primary analysis. 80 had received a heart from a circulatory death donor and 86 had received a heart from a brain death donor. The risk adjusted six month survival in the circulatory death donor group was 94% and 90% in the brain death donor group, with P<0.001 for non-inferiority. There was no significant between the groups re...
Source: Cardiophile MD - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: Cardiac Surgery Source Type: blogs