Cardiac surgery late after heart transplantation: a safe and effective treatment option.

Objective: Owing to the improved long-term outcome after cardiac transplantation, cardiac allograft vasculopathy or valvular disease is developing late after heart transplantation in a growing number of patients. In this study, we evaluated our results of nonretransplant cardiac surgery in these patients and compared them with those after retransplantation.

Methods: Since 1983, a total of 867 heart transplantations have been performed at our institution.