Selection of patients for heart transplant.
In the four and one-half years since the revival of its cardiac transplant program in 1982, the Texas Heart Institute has performed 163 transplants. Here the author reviews medical criteria for recipients and donors during that period and discusses actual and possible changes in those criteria. Relaxation of certain rigorous criteria for recipients has increased the number of medically-qualified recipients, but to date there has been no corresponding increase in the donor pool. Criteria for heart recipients at the Texas Heart Institute are discussed within the broader context of an overview of the entire evaluation-and-acceptance procedure.
Barnum
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Texas Heart Institute, St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA.