European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, Vol 10, 628-633, Copyright © 1996 by European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery
Excellent outcome of cardiac transplantation using domino donor hearts
JA Smith, M Roberts, K McNeil, LD Sharples, PM Schofield, SR Large, SA Nashef, FC Wells and J Wallwork
Transplant Unit, Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, UK.
OBJECTIVE: Domino cardiac transplantation affords flexible and optimal
organ utilization, provides hearts unaffected by brain death, allows
prospective tissue matching, and subsequent transplantation with short
allograft ischemic times. A retrospective review of our experience with
domino cardiac transplantation has been made. METHODS: Seventy-two of 119
patients who underwent heart-lung transplantation from 1988 on served as
domino cardiac donors (40 males, 32 females; mean age of 32 years; mean
weight of 51 kg). The domino donor diagnoses were cystic fibrosis (n = 47),
bronchiectasis (n = 9), primary pulmonary hypertension (n = 6), emphysema
(n = 7), pulmonary fibrosis (n = 2) and Eisenmenger's syndrome (n = 1).
Forty-seven domino hearts were transplanted at our institution and 25 were
exported to other centres in the United Kingdom. The 72 domino cardiac
recipients were 62 males and 10 females, mean age of 47 years, mean weight
of 60 kg, with ischemic heart disease (n = 32), cardiomyopathy (n = 36) and
other conditions (n = 4). RESULTS: There were four deaths (5.6%) at less
than 30 days (2 from multiple organ failure, 1 from primary allograft
failure and 1 from acute rejection). Actuarial survival estimates and 1 and
5 years were 77 +/- 5.2% nd 69 +/- 6.3%, respectively. This compared
favourably with survival data obtained in 234 non-domino cardiac
recipients. In the patients transplanted at Papworth, there was no
difference in the incidence of rejection (0.6 +/- 0.05 versus 0.7 +/- 0.03
events per 100 patient days for the first 12 months) or in the freedom from
graft atherosclerosis (74 +/- 3% versus 70 +/- 3% at 5 years) between the
domino and non-domino groups. CONCLUSIONS: The use of domino hearts donated
by recipients of heart-lung transplants is beneficial and is associated
with an excellent early and longer-term outcome.