Increasing Multiorgan Heart Transplantations From Donation After Circulatory Death Donors in the United States.

Introduction: Donation after circulatory death (DCD) donors are becoming an important source of organs for heart-transplantation (HT), but there are limited data regarding their use in multiorgan-HT.

Methods: Between January 2020 and June 2023, we identified 87 adult multiorgan-HTs performed using DCD-donors [77 heart-kidney, 6 heart-lung, 4 heart-liver] and 1494 multiorgan-HTs using donation after brain death (DBD) donors (1141 heart-kidney, 165 heart-lung, 188 heart-liver) in UNOS. For heart-kidney transplantations (the most common multiorgan-HT combination from DCD-donors), we also compared donor/recipient characteristics, and early outcomes, including 6-month mortality using Kaplan-Meier (KM) and Cox hazards-ratio (Cox-HR).