Interaction of Donor and Recipient Age: Do Older Heart Transplant Recipients Require Younger Hearts?

Background: Older patients (aged 60 years or more) awaiting heart transplant often have comorbidities that may limit overall survival independent of cardiac status. We hypothesized that these comorbidities have a more-limiting impact on survival than age of donor heart and that older allografts might be utilized in these patients without compromising outcomes.

Methods: We identified all transplant recipients aged more than 60 years in the United Network for Organ Sharing database.