Heart Disease and Transplant: General Information

A heart transplant is:

• Surgery to remove a diseased heart and replace it with a healthy heart from a donor. 
• For patients with heart failure that is not improving with medicine and other surgeries.
• A treatment for heart failure. It is not a cure.

 In adults, heart failure is caused by:

• Weakening heart muscle (cardiomyopathy)
• Coronary artery disease
• Heart valve disease
• Congenital heart defect (something you were born with)
• Recurring abnormal heart rhythms (ventricular arrhythmias) that are dangerous but don’t improve with other treatments
• Failure of a previous heart transplant 

Ask your transplant team about the benefits and risks of a heart transplant. Heart transplant has medical risks, like:

• Higher risk of infection
• Organ rejection (when the body’s immune system attacks the new organ)
• Medication side effects (hand tremors, diabetes, appetite changes, or mood swings)
• Coronary artery disease
• Stroke
• Death

Heart transplant also has emotional and social risks, like:  

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Guilt
• Dependence on caregivers
• Financial stress

Heart Transplant Waitlist

If eligible for transplant, the patient is listed on the transplant waiting list, according to their medical need status. 

• There are 6 medical need statuses
• Status 1 is the most urgent, and Status 6 is the least urgent
• The transplant team reviews the patient’s status while they wait for transplant

Ask your transplant team about increased-risk donors. 

• Patients who accept organs from increased-risk donors usually wait less time for an organ. 
• An increased-risk donor is a deceased donor with higher risk of spreading one of the following undiagnosed diseases to a transplant patient (Abara et al., 2019):
  • Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) 
  • Hepatitis B
  • Hepatitis C (HCV)
• Organs from increased-risk donors are not lower quality