Risk factors for the development of coronary artery disease of a grafted heart as detected very early after orthotopic heart transplantation

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Abstract
Orthotopic heart transplantation (OHTx) represents a well established method of end-stage heart failure treatment. Allograft coronary artery disease (CAD) still remains to be one of the most important limiting factors for OHTx recipients' long-term survival. Unfortunately, allograft CAD can be detected very early after OHTx. Our study was designed to identify risk factors for early allograft CAD development. Eighty-three OHTx recipients (18 females, 65 males, mean age 50.55 +/- 11.04 years) with coronary intravascular ultrasound examination performed early after OHTx (29.81 +/- 12.45 days) formed the study population. The impact of a number of pre-, peri- and early post-transplant possible risk factors on early allograft CAD development was studied. By multivariate analysis, only higher donor age (P < 0.001) and higher recipient's body mass index (P = 0.003) were found to represent risk factors for the early development of allograft CAD.