Does multiorgan donation influence survival in heart transplantation?

Current heart transplant survival in Spain at 1, 5, and 10 years is 80%, 70%, and 60%, respectively. Our objective was to establish how donor type affects survival in heart transplantation.

This was a retrospective study of heart transplant recipients from 102 donors, divided into three types: (a) heart-liver-kidney donors (group I); (b) heart-liver-kidney-lung donors (group II); and (c) heart-liver-kidney-lung-pancreas donors (group III). We excluded retransplantations, pediatric transplantations, and cardiopulmonary transplantations. The outcome variable was the actuarial survival by type of donation. Statistical analysis was performed for event-free survival based on the Kaplan-Meier method (log-rank test).

Groups I, II, and III included 63, 26, and 13 donors, respectively. The survival curves showed similar values for all three groups (P > .05).

The different combinations of multiorgan donation do not entail a poorer prognosis in terms of cardiac transplant patient survival.