Infections in heart transplant recipients: the experience of the Italian heart transplantation program. Italian Study Group on Infections in Heart Transplantation.

Infectious complications are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in heart transplantation. In this report we describe their incidence in the Italian Heart Transplantation Program and their relationship to induction immunosuppressive protocols used. A total of 662 heart transplantations in 651 patients had been performed by March 1, 1990, in 10 Italian centers, with a follow-up of 12,022 patient-months. Actuarial survival at 54 months was 80%. There were 115 deaths, 28 as a result of infection (24%); 30 were perioperative. Mortality from infection was 15% in the first 30 postoperative days and 35% thereafter. During follow-up, 256 life-threatening infectious episodes occurred in 180 patients, for a mean of 1.42 infections/patient. Of these episodes, 28 (10.9%) were lethal. The rate at 54 months, excluding perioperative deaths, was 0.021 episodes/patient-month, with a mean of 0.39 infections/patient in the 651-patient series. At 6 months, 72% of patients were free from infection. This value did not change significantly during subsequent follow-up. Bacterial infections were most frequent (49.2%); fungal (10.5%) and protozoan (5.9%) infections had the worst outcome (lethality 26% and 20%, respectively). A primary cytomegalovirus infection was observed in 23 cases (12 mismatches). Lung involvement (99 episodes) and bacterial sepsis (47 episodes) were most common. Eighty episodes of infection (31.2%) were preceded by a supplementary treatment for rejection with steroid pulses (69%), prednisone boost (20%), or cytolytic therapy (11%). Treatment had preceded the infection by less than 15 days in 55% of cases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Heart transplantation in mildly diabetic patients.

From 1985 to 1989, 67 heart transplantations were performed in our hospital, 6 of them in non-insulin-dependent (type II) diabetic patients. Six pretransplantation type II diabetic male heart recipients (mean +/- SD age 50.0 +/- 7.3 yr) were compared with 61 nondiabetic recipients (mean age 44.5 +/- 11.0 yr; 55 men, 6 women) to define whether a different posttransplantation prognosis may be caused by pretransplantation diabetes. Before transplantation, all diabetic recipients (3 newly diagnosed and 3 with diabetes duration of 5, 6, and 12 yr, respectively) were in good glycemic control (mean fasting blood glucose 7.95 +/- 1.62 mM, mean HbA1c 7.6 +/- 0.2%). None had ocular or renal microangiopathic complications, 5 were treated only with diet, and 1 was treated with oral hypoglycemic agents. All recipients were treated with the same immunosuppressive protocol (cyclosporin, prednisone, and since 1986, azathioprine and antilymphocyte globulin), and mean dose and blood levels of cyclosporin were not significantly different between diabetic and nondiabetic recipients. After heart transplantation (mean follow-up 558 +/- 340 days in diabetic and 379 +/- 338 in nondiabetic recipients), the mortality rate and complications (i.e., rejection episodes, supplementary immunosuppressive treatments, major and minor infections, arterial hypertension, and graft atherosclerosis) showed no significant differences except for the more frequent arterial hypertension in diabetic recipients (P less than 0.05), although pretransplantation incidence of hypertension was lower in diabetic candidates.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The Italian Heart Transplant Project: organization of a multicenter program.

The Italian Heart Transplant Project is a national program coordinated by the Health Ministry and involves eight cardiac surgery centers, two coordination centers for organ procurement, and one national registry. An intercenter network for the solution of logistic problems regarding organ procurement and assignment has been built up. Preintervention and clinical follow-up data are recorded in each center and in a national registry by the implementation of a computerized data base. This is realized by employing low cost and diffuse software and hardware. The complex goal of common data collection and standardization is also being pursued for collateral areas such as cardiac pathology and immunologic surveillance. Data collection is useful for clinical monitoring and also for costs and/or requirements analysis.