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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 1997;11:S1-S4
© 1997 Elsevier Science NL

Ischemic cardiomyopathy — revascularization vs. transplantation

Klinik fur Thorax- und Kardiovaskularchirurgie Herzzentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen Universitatsklinik der Ruhr-Universitat, Bochum, Germany

^_* Corresponding author.

Advanced coronary artery disease (CAD) and ischemic cardiomyopathy with elevated pulmonary artery pressures are criteria of a severe illness. In selected cases surgical revascularization has proved beneficial in terms of survival, reduction of morbidity and lowering the frequency of angina pectoris [6] in numerous studies over the past 25 years. But most of the earlier publications concentrated on patients with angina pectoris (AP) as a dominant symptom. Patients without AP but with predominant signs of congestive heart failure were largely excluded. This has changed recently [1–3,7,8,10,12,16,18] with the advent of the concept of hibernating myocardium. This term is defined as the presence of persistent myocardial and left ventricular dysfunction at rest due to reduced regional coronary blood flow that can be partially or completely restored to normal by myocardial revascularization [5,19]. Salvage of viable myocardium by successful revascularization improves left ventricular dysfunction. Diagnosis of hibernating myocardium is crucial because it does not leave the patient with chronic heart failure a candidate only for cardiac transplantation. Instead, these patients' left ventricular dysfunction is potentially reversible following revascularization by coronary bypass surgery. Furthermore we face a critical shortage of donor organs and extending waiting lists for possible transplant candidates. Following the start of the heart transplantation (HTX) program at our institution more than 690 operations were performed until September 1995. We screened more than 1600 patients for their eligibility as cardiac transplant recipients or for other forms of treatment. In this group of patients it has always been our policy to revascularize rather than transplant whenever possible.

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