Experts Recommend Steps to Increase Hearts Available for Transplantation

A group of transplant experts has developed a set of detailed recommendations designed to increase the number of heart transplants performed in the United States by helping hospitals make better use of hearts from cadaver donors.

While a variety of organs were transplanted from more than 6,000 U.S. cadaver donors in 2001, just over one-third of the hearts of these donors were successfully used for heart transplants -- resulting in hundreds of deaths of patients on heart transplant waiting lists.

"Suboptimal and variable utilization of donor hearts has compounded the problem in the United States," the experts reported.

They said that while some hospitals successfully use hearts from 62 percent of the cadaver organ donors in their areas, other transplant centers use hearts from as few as 19 percent of the cadaver donors.

At a consensus conference held a year ago, the transplant experts developed a set of recommendations designed to "improve the evaluation and successful utilization of potential cardiac donors."

Their recommendations appear in a report in the rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Among the suggestions are that transplant centers consider using hearts from previously healthy donors older than 55, which often are automatically rejected, and use hearts that have not been thoroughly examined by a cardiologist if the donor had been in reasonably good health.

Some of the experts believe that the number of hearts that could be used for desperately ill patients awaiting transplants could be increased relatively easily by 500 or more if all centers followed the recommendations.