CONGRESS ABSTRACT

Heart transplantation is the gold standard in the treatment of advanced heart failure refractory to medical therapy. The high number of patients on the heart transplant list and the low number of donors represent a problem in heart transplantation. We analyzed the incidence of primary graft dysfunction (PGD), ECMO implantation, use of CVVH, survival and incidence of infection in 116 recipients from DBD donors without cardiac arrest treated with CPR (OHCA) with 25 recipients from donors with cardiac arrest treated with CPR (n-OHCA). The preoperative characteristics of the recipients were comparable. The mean time to cardiac arrest treated with CPR was 21.23 min. In the two groups analyzed, no statistically significant differences were observed between two groups in terms of: PGD (0.25), ECMO (0.38), use of CVVH (0.38), infections (0.57) and survival (0.38). In conclusion: the use of a donor with cardiac arrest, even if treated with CPR but with recovery of ventricular function, constitutes a valid solution in cardiac transplantation.