TUESDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- Donor hearts with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) can be safely used in patients requiring heart transplantation, according to research published in the March 25 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Sorel Goland, M.D., of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and colleagues retrospectively reviewed data from 427 heart transplant recipients, of whom 62 received hearts with LVH and 365 received hearts without LVH, in order to evaluate outcomes of heart transplantation and changes in left ventricular wall thickness when donor hearts with LVH were used. Median follow-up was 3.8 years.
The investigators found no significant differences in 30-day or one-year mortality rates between recipients of LVH donor hearts versus those without LVH (1.6 percent versus 3.3 percent, and 3.5 percent versus 9.5 percent). At one and five years follow-up, baseline differences in left ventricular wall thickness between groups were no longer evident, indicating that regression of LVH had occurred, the researchers report.
"These results suggest that donor hearts with mild and moderate LVH can be safely used for heart transplantation and may increase the number of hearts available for transplantation," the authors conclude.
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