Animal Animal Animal AnimalSupplementary Figure 1: Changes in main pulmonary artery cuff pressure over the twomonth period of sheep PH-RVH model Supplementary Figure 2: The evaluation of PH-RVH model: a) the transthoracic echocardiograph of the heart, demonstrating RV hypertrophy and interventricular septal flattening; b) the necropsy of the heart-lung en bloc with the pulmonary artery cuff (white arrow); c) the weight ratio between right ventricular free wall and left ventricle + interventricular septum (RV:(LV+IVS)). The data show minimum, maximum, interquartile range, and median of the ratio for 4 animals, and the dotted line represents an average RV:(LV+IVS) value in normal sheep from previous study. 6 d) Gömöri trichrome stain comparing RV tissue between healthy sheep (left) and PH-RVH sheep from the presented model (right).
Background
Data on out‐of‐ice implantation ischemia in heart transplant are scarce. We examined implantation time's impact on allograft dysfunction.
Methods
We conducted a single‐site retrospective review of all primary adult heart transplants from June 2012 to August 2019 for implantation warm ischemic time (WIT), defined as first atrial stitch to aortic crossclamp removal. Univariate regression was used to assess the relationship of perioperative variables to primary graft dysfunction (PGD) and to pulmonary artery pulsatility index (PAPi) at postoperative hour 24. A threshold of p < .10 was set for the inclusion of covariates in multivariate regression. Secondary analyses evaluated for consistency among alternative criteria for allograft dysfunction. A post hoc subgroup analysis examined WIT effect in prolonged total ischemia of 240 min or longer.
Results
Complete data were available for 201 patients. Baseline characteristics were similar between patients who did and did not have WIT documented. In univariate analysis, female gender, longer total ischemic time (TIT), longer bypass time, greater blood transfusions, and pretransplant intensive care unit (ICU) care were associated with PGD, whereas longer bypass time was associated with worse PAPi and pretransplant ICU care was associated with better PAPi. In multivariate analysis, longer bypass time predicted PGD, and worse PAPi and preoperative ICU admission predicted PGD and better PAPi. Results did not differ in secondary or subgroup analyses.
Conclusions
This study is one of few examining the functional impact of cardiac implantation ischemia. Results suggest allograft implantation time alone may not impact postoperative graft function, which was driven by intraoperative bypass duration and by preoperative ICU care, instead.
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