Successful heart transplantation with cardiac allografts exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning

The procurement of cardiac allografts from brain-dead donors who have suffered acute carbon monoxide poisoning has, in the past, been considered inadvisable. Two patients have recently undergone successful transplantation at our institution with cardiac allografts from donors who had suffered acute carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide poisoning is not a contraindication to cardiac allograft procurement in the setting of clinical and objective evidence of satisfactory cardiac function.