Retransplantation in 7,290 primary transplant patients: a 10-year multi-institutional study.

Background: Cardiac retransplantation is a controversial procedure due to the disparity between donor heart demand and supply.

Methods: Of 7,290 patients undergoing primary cardiac transplantation between January 1990 and December 1999 at 42 institutions contributing to the Cardiac Transplant Research Database (CTRD), 106 patients later underwent a second and 1 patient a third cardiac transplant procedure.

Results: The actuarial freedom from retransplantation was 99.