ArticleJournal of the American Heart Association2021
National Trends in Heart Donor Usage Rates: Are We Efficiently Transplanting More Hearts?
Article in Journal of the American Heart Association, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed, 97 citations in OpenAlex.
- Superior 5-Year Survival in Heart Transplant Recipients with Pre-Transplant Dilated Cardiomyopathy Versus Ischemic Cardiomyopathy.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Lead fragment characteristics and detection by radiographic imaging after heart transplant.Heart rhythm O2 · 2026Article
- Review
- Recent perioperative challenges in anesthesia during expansion of heart transplantation.Journal of cardiothoracic surgery · 2026Review
- Outcomes among patients bridged to heart transplant with microaxial flow versus durable left ventricular assist device support.The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery · 2026Article
- Beating heart transplantation: A single center's initial experience and propensity-matched analysis against national registry data.JHLT open · 2026Article
- Causal nonlinear dose response analysis of donor-recipient predicted heart mass ratio.JHLT open · 2026Article
- Predictors of intraoperative donor heart turndown after initial acceptance for transplantation.JTCVS open · 2025Article
- Five-year experience of heart transplantation following donation after circulatory death.The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery · 2025Article
- Fate of Discarded Hearts Donated After Circulatory Death: Is There an Opportunity for Novel Use?Annals of thoracic surgery short reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Moving Beyond the Perfect Donor: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Optimizing Donor Utilization.JACC. Advances · 2025Article
- Targeting the Hippo Pathway for Cardiac Regeneration.Physiology (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Review
- Advancing Heart Failure Care: Breakthroughs and Emerging Strategies.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Association of the 2018 U.S. Heart Allocation Policy Change and the Survival Benefit of Heart Transplantation.JACC. Heart failure · 2025Observational
- Right ventricle remodelling: fromJournal of molecular and cellular cardiology plus · 2025Review
- Enhancing outcomes in Langendorff-perfused rodent hearts through perfusion parameter optimization.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Decoding immune cell interactions during cardiac allograft vasculopathy: insights derived from bioinformatic strategies.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
- Cost-effectiveness analysis of bridge-to-transplantation temporary mechanical circulatory support versus non-bridged heart transplantation.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Australian outcomes from heart transplantation in the machine perfusion era.Annals of cardiothoracic surgery · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Background It is unclear whether the recent increase in the number of heart transplants performed annually in the United States is only because of higher availability of donors and if it affected recipients' survival. Methods and Results We examined characteristics of donors and recipients from 2008 to 2012 (n=11 654) and 2013 to 2017 (n=14 556) and compared them with 2003 to 2007 (n=10 869). Cox models examined 30-day and 1-year risk of recipients' death post transplant. From 2013 to 2017, there was an increase in the number of transplanted hearts and number of donor offers but an overall decline in the ratio of hearts transplanted to available donors. Donors between 2013 and 2017 were older, heavier, more hypertensive, diabetic, and likely to have abused illicit drugs compared with previous years. Drug overdose and hepatitis C positive donors were additional contributors to donor risk in recent years. In Cox models, risk of death post transplant between 2013 and 2017 was 15% lower at 30 days (hazard ratio [HR] 0.85; 95% CI, 0.74-0.98) and 21% lower at 1 year (HR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.73-0.87) and between 2008 and 2012 was 9% lower at 30 days (HR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.79-1.05) and 14% lower at 1 year (HR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.79-0.94) compared with 2003 to 2007. Conclusions Despite a substantial increase in heart donor offers in recent years, the ratio of transplants performed to available donors has decreased. Even though hearts from donors who are older, more hypertensive, and have diabetes mellitus are being used, overall recipient survival continues to improve. Broader acceptance of drug overdose and hepatitis C positive donors may increase the number and percentage of heart transplants further without jeopardizing short-term outcomes.
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Registered trials
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