TUESDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- In heart transplant patients, those who are transplanted for congenital heart disease and survive the early postoperative period are usually as likely as other patients to experience late survival, according to a study published in the July 7 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Jacqueline M. Lamour, M.D., of Columbia University in New York City, and colleagues analyzed data on 367 patients from the Pediatric Heart Transplant Study who received transplants from 1993 to 2002, and 121 patients from the Cardiac Transplant Registry Database who received transplants from 1990 to 2002.
The researchers found that three-month survival rates for congenital heart disease patients, children with cardiomyopathy, and adults with cardiomyopathy were 86 percent, 94 percent, and 91 percent, respectively. After five years, overall survival was the same for both congenital and non-congenital heart disease patients (80 percent). However, five-year survival was significantly lower among patients who had pre-transplant Fontan operations compared to non-Fontan patients (70 versus 81 percent).
"New strategies are needed to neutralize the underlying transplant risks unique to the failing Fontan patient," the authors conclude.
Abstract
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