Impact of Recipient's Age on Heart Transplantation Outcome

Balancing rejection and infection with respect to age, race, and gender: Clues acquired from 17 years of cardiac transplantation data

“…Among these studies, a decrease in rejection 13,14 or an increase in infection in infants was reported. 16 Similarly, older patients (typically classified as Ͼ55 years of age at the time of transplant) also were reported to experience lower rates of rejection 17,25,26 or increased rates of infection. 22,25,26 Two studies are notable because of their larger numbers or the number of years in which the data were collected.…”

“…16 Similarly, older patients (typically classified as Ͼ55 years of age at the time of transplant) also were reported to experience lower rates of rejection 17,25,26 or increased rates of infection. 22,25,26 Two studies are notable because of their larger numbers or the number of years in which the data were collected. The largest study, reported by Weiss and colleagues, included information from 14,401 patients in the UNOS database to show that patients Ͼ60 years of age experienced reduced rejection and increased infection rates.…”

“…26 Information on immunosuppression and follow-up is limited in the UNOS database, but similar results were obtained in a large study by Tjang and colleagues using data obtained from 1,262 patients transplanted from 1998 to 2004. 25 The collection of follow-up data, including morbidity, mortality, immunosuppression and patient demographics across 17 years of experience, allowed us to create mathematical models of the relationships between infection and rejection as a function of age at time of transplant as well as year of transplant.…”

Selection of Cardiac Transplantation Candidates in 2010

“…It is not surprising, therefore, that older age is also associated with a greater morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases and cancer. 51,52 It has been suggested that a reduction in the levels of immunosuppression in elderly recipients may decrease the incidence of infection with the rate of rejection being unchanged. In addition, steroid-induced diabetes mellitus and osteoporosis are more likely to occur in older patients, which may warrant closer screening of these patients for comorbid conditions before transplantation.…”

Impact of donor quality on outcome of heart transplantation☆☆☆

“…Among their population who had heart transplantation between March 1989 and December 2004 there were 540 recipients younger than 55 years and 722 older. They observed that the outcome of heart transplantation was less favourable in older than in younger recipients [17].…”