title: Profile of patients in the Unified Waiting List for heart transplantation in state of Ceará.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Organ transplants have increased considerably in recent years because of technological developments and society's awareness for organ donation.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe the characteristics of the single list of patients waiting for heart transplantation; to identify the main heart diseases; and determine the average time a patient stays in the list until the surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a descriptive, documentary and retrospective study with a quantitative approach. It was developed at the Transplant Center of the State of Ceará, with 156 patients included in Unified Waiting List from 1999 to 2006. Data were organized into figures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were: 81% males; 22.4% of young adults (20 to 40 years old) and 56.4% middle-aged adults (40 to 64 years old), averaging 36 years old; 79% from Fortaleza-CE; 91% with cardiomyopathy as a cause of heart transplantation. Among these, 102 patients (69%) were transplanted; 37 (25%) died before transplantation; and 8 (6%) were excluded due to improvement or worsening of clinical status.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The patients from the Unified Waiting List for Heart Transplantation in the state of Ceará, from 1999 to 2006, were male (80%), with ages ranging from 1 to 71 years, with a predominance of dilated cardiomyopathy (53.4%), and the average waiting time was 136 days until the day of cardiac transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, CE, Brasil. felisangela@yahoo.com.br
authors.forename: Francisca Elisângela Teixeira
authors.initials: FE
authors.lastname: Lima
authors.forename: Adriana Kelly Almeida
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.forename: Kelly de Araújo
authors.initials: Kde A
authors.lastname: Fontenele
authors.forename: Eliana Régia Barbosa de
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Almeida
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001938:Brazil; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013997:Time Factors; D014850:Waiting Lists; D055815:Young Adult