Smoking Behavior of Heart Transplant Patients: A Retrospective Study

Smoking is an important risk factor for development of complications in heart transplant patients and plays an important role in the mortality of these patients. The aim of this study was to compare the survival of heart transplant patients after transplant versus their smoking status before transplant.

Patients who had heart transplant procedures at the Baskent University Hospital Cardiovascular Surgery Department between 2005 and 2016 were analyzed retrospectively with regard to their smoking status and survival after transplant. We divided the 51 included adult patients into 2 groups: nonsmokers and ex-smokers. Data were analyzed with SPSS software (Statistical Package for Social Sciences for Windows, version 23.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Descriptive statistics are shown as means ± standard deviation, and differences between means were determined with t tests. Survival statistics were evaluated with Kaplan-Meier analyses using log-rank test.

Of 51 heart transplant patients, 40 were male (78.4%) and 11 were female (21.6%) patients. Mean age was 42.5 ± 14.2 years in male patients and 30.4 ± 13.2 years in female patients (95% confidence interval, 2.4-21.8). Although 36 patients(70.6%) were still living at follow-up, 15 patients had died (29.4%). According to smoking status, 30 patients (58.8%) were nonsmokers and 21 patients (41.2%) were ex-smokers, who showed smoking rate of 23.7 ± 26.0 packs/year. We found that patients who were nonsmokers survived longer; however, at time of analysis (September 30, 2017), survival was not mature yet for the nonsmoking group. Median survival time for patients who were ex-smokers was 93.0 months(log-rank test = .099) CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that patients in the nonsmoking group survived longer after heart transplant. Early smoking cessation can prolong survival of heart transplant patients.