Redo orthotopic heart transplantation in the current era

This study aims to investigate the trends, outcomes, and risk factors for mortality after redo orthotopic heart transplantation.

The United Network for Organ Sharing registry was used to identify adult orthotopic heart transplantation recipients from 2000 to 2020 and stratify into primary and redo cohorts. Five-year post-transplant survival was compared between 2 propensity-matched cohorts. Multivariable modeling was performed to identify risk-adjusted predictors of redo post-transplant mortality, both conditional and nonconditional on shorter-term survival.

A total of 40,711 recipients were analyzed, 39,657 (97.4%) primary and 1054 (2.6%) redo. Redo recipients had a lower median age and were more frequently bridged with intravenous inotropes, intra-aortic balloon pump, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (all P < .05). One- and 5-year survivals were lower after redo orthotopic heart transplantation (90.0% vs 83.4% and 77.6% vs 68.6%, respectively) and remained lower after comparing 2 propensity-matched cohorts. Multivariable modeling found factors such as increasing donor age and graft ischemic times, along with pretransplant mechanical ventilation and blood transfusion, to negatively affect 90-day survival. Contingent on 1-year survival, donor factors such as hypertension (hazard ratio, 1.51; 95% confidence interval, 1.15-2.00, P = .004) and left ventricular ejection fraction less than 50% (hazard ratio, 2.22, 95% confidence interval, 1.16-4.24, P = .016) negatively affected survival at 5 years.

Although infrequently performed, redo orthotopic heart transplantation remains associated with worse post-transplant outcomes compared with primary orthotopic heart transplantation. Although several high-risk features were identified to affect post-retransplant outcomes in the acute perioperative period, donor characteristics such as hypertension and decreased ejection fraction continue to have lasting negative impacts in the longer term.