New Findings on Heart Transplantation

New studies on heart transplantation show that smaller hearts could increase the donor pool, and that the anti-rejection drug everolimus is more effective than cyclosporine. These findings were reported at the meeting of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) in San Francisco (CA, USA) in April 2004.

It was previously believed that for a heart transplant to be successful, the donor heart must match in size the heart transplant recipient. However, researchers at Temple University (Philadelphia, PA, USA) compared the growth and adaptability of undersized hearts to normal-sized donor hearts in heart transplant recipients over a 10-year period and found no significant differences.

"In our study, we found that undersized hearts adapted by increasing in mass. Further, there was no significant difference in function, capacity, or survival rates between those patients who received undersized hearts and those who received normal-sized hearts,” said Dr., Satoshi Furkawa, associate professor of surgery at Temple University Hospital, who led the research.

Findings from the second year of a multicenter study of the new anti-rejection drug everolimus show that the drug is not only more effective than cyclosporine but also safer in preventing heart transplant rejection. "When combined with cyclosporine and steroids, everolimus prevents transplant rejection and lowers risk of infection and other complications better than the current standard anti-rejection therapy,” said Dr. Howard Eisen, professor of medicine at Temple University School of Medicine.




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