Effect of older donor age on risk for mortality after heart transplantation.

Background: Despite the increasingly common use of donor hearts at least 50 years of age, controversy still remains regarding long-term outcome. Our goal was to determine if older donor age is associated with an increased risk of mortality and specifically if the use of donor hearts at least 50 years of age reduces survival.

Methods: We retrospectively studied records of all primary heart transplants performed between January 1990 and July 2002.