News From Transplant Week of April 14, 2002 / Vol. 3 No. 15

 

Study: One-Third of Ex-Smokers Resume After Heart Transplants
 

More than one-third of ex-smokers who receive heart transplants resume smoking at some point after their life-saving operation, reducing their prospects of living at least five years after their transplant by more than half, according to researchers.

Carol Stilley, assistant professor of nursing and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, told the annual meeting of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation that patients who had quit smoking less than six months before their transplant were the most likely to resume.

Depression and anxiety within two months after the transplant also were strongly associated with an early resumption of smoking, Stilley added.

The Pittsburgh researchers studied 202 heart transplant recipients -- 144 of whom had a history of smoking -- for up to three years.

Fifty-five recipients started smoking at some point after their transplant, and of these recipients, 45 started smoking within the first year, including 26 who started within two months.

A relapse to smoking clearly compounds the risks facing transplant recipients, since studies conducted in Europe have indicated a 37 percent five-year survival rate for heart transplant patients who smoke, compared to an 80 percent survival for their nonsmoking counterparts.

"Understanding which patients go back to smoking should help us design more effective intervention strategies to aggressively target high-risk patients as well as their caregivers," Stilley told the meeting.

Other sources: University of Pittsburgh