An Intervention Trial for Strengthening Medical Adherence after Heart Transplantation.

Introduction: In heart transplant recipients, nonadherence is associated with higher risk of morbidity and mortality.

Research Question: Can a psychoeducational intervention enhance adherence to medical recommendations?

Design: We randomized 200 patients awaiting heart transplantation on the high urgency wait list to a manualized psychoeducational intervention or standard care. Follow-up continued to three years after transplantation.

Donor-recipient risk assessment tools in heart transplant recipients: the Bad Oeynhausen experience.

Aims: Some risk assessment tools have been developed to categorize mortality risk in heart transplant recipients, but it is unclear whether these tools can be used interchangeable in different transplant regions.

Methods And Results: We performed a retrospective single-centre study in 1049 adult German heart transplant recipients under jurisdiction of Eurotransplant. Univariable and multivariable Cox regression analysis was used to generate a risk scoring system.

Distinct Myocardial Transcriptomic Profiles of Cardiomyopathies Stratified by the Mutant Genes.

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain not well understood. Cardiomyopathies are primary diseases of the heart muscle and contribute to high rates of heart failure and sudden cardiac deaths. Here, we distinguished four different genetic cardiomyopathies based on gene expression signatures.

Renal Function in Patients with or without a Left Ventricular Assist Device Implant During Listing for a Heart Transplant.

BACKGROUND Left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation may improve kidney function, but in patients awaiting heart transplantation, the long-term effects of LVAD implantation on renal function and subsequent clinical outcome are unclear. MATERIAL AND METHODS We analyzed data in patients with LVAD implants (n=139) and without LVAD implants (n=1038) who were listed for a heart transplant at our institution between 2000 and 2019. The primary endpoint was an impairment in renal function (decrease of creatinine-based estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] by ≥30%) up to a maximum of 2 years after listing.

Heart transplantation at the Heart Center North Rhine-Westfalia.

At the Heart Center North Rhine-Westfalia, Germany, more than 1,500 adult cardiac transplantations and more than 100 pediatric cardiac transplantations have been performed since the transplant program was initiated in 1989. Each year, we take care of 800 cardiac transplant recipients and 1,700 patients with heart failure who are in a long-term program for cardiac transplantation or on the Eurotransplant waiting list for cardiac transplantation. We have experience with ventricular assist device implantation as bridge to transplant in more than 300 patients.