Impact of donor cardiac arrest on heart transplantation

Cardiac transplantation is an effective therapy for patients with end-stage heart failure, but it is still hindered by the lack of donor organs. A history of donor cardiac arrest raises trepidation regarding the possibility of poor post-transplant outcomes. The impact of donor cardiac arrest following successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation on heart transplant outcomes is unknown. Therefore, we sought to evaluate the impact of donor cardiac arrest on orthotropic heart transplantation using the United Network for Organ Sharing database.

We performed a secondary longitudinal analysis of all cardiac transplants performed between April 1994 and December 2011 through the United Network for Organ Sharing registry. Multiorgan transplants, repeat transplants, and pediatric recipients were excluded. Survival analyses were performed using Kaplan-Meier methods as well as multivariate adjusted logistic regression and Cox proportional hazard models.

A total of 19,980 patients were analyzed. In 856 cases, the donors had histories of cardiac arrest, and in the remaining 19,124 cases, there was no history of donor cardiac arrest. The unadjusted 1-, 5-, and 10-year actuarial survival rates between the arrest and the nonarrest groups were not significantly different. Multivariate logistic regression demonstrated no difference in survival in the donor arrest group at 30 days, 1 year, or 3 years. Furthermore, the adjusted Cox proportional hazard model for cumulative survival also showed no survival difference between the 2 groups.

If standard recipient and donor transplantation criteria are met, a history of donor cardiac arrest should not prohibit the potential consideration of an organ for transplantation.