Reuse of a Transplanted Heart

Abstract

Many patients are waiting for heart transplantation, and some of them will die before surgery because of the lack of donor organs¹. The increased demand for cardiac transplantation in the face of a relatively fixed supply of donor hearts has meant that the average waiting time has lengthened. It is estimated that in the United States alone, 2000 patients per month need cardiac transplants, whereas the number of transplantation procedures has remained steady at approximately 100 per month². Recently we were faced with an unusual clinical situation when one of our heart-transplant recipients suffered brain death after an excellent hemodynamic recovery. We elected to pass his transplanted heart on to another recipient, thus creating a unique situation³ in which one heart functioned consecutively in three people.