[Invasive cardiology in a heart transplantation program]

The heart transplantation is a clinical therapeutic method which significantly improves quality and longevity in some of the patients with severe and otherwise uncorrectable heart failure. Success of the procedure depends on highly organized and multidisciplinary medical cooperation. The paper presents an overview of the main cardiological invasive techniques and their role in heart transplantation programme. The presented analysis is based in more than 10 years of the author's own experience with heart transplantation in clinical medicine and on critical analysis of the current publications on this topic. (Tab. 4, Fig. 7, Ref. 53.)