MITRAL REGURGITATION AND DEATH WHILE AWAITING CARDIAC TRANSPLANTATION

Patients selected as candidates for orthotopic cardiac transplantation have end-stage heart disease with a poor prognosis. Most cardiac transplantation centers require patients to have an estimated annual mortality of 50% as a criterion for selection as a potential recipient. Even in this highly selected population, there is considerable variation in prognosis. Some patients tolerate months of medical therapy while awaiting transplantation, whereas others die, often unpredictably. From 1987 to 1990, the average patient waiting period from selection as a candidate to transplantation at the University of Florida was 2.3 months. Of 137 patients listed with the United Network for Organ Sharing during this period, 19 (14%) died while awaiting transplantation. We performed a retrospective evaluation of these patients to test the hypothesis that echocardiographic evidence of severe mitral regurgitation may be a simple, easily obtained marker for early death while awaiting transplantation. © 1993.