A heart transplant is a procedure in which a surgeon removes a diseased heart and replaces it with a donor heart. During a heart transplant, a mechanical pump circulates blood through the body while the surgeon removes the diseased heart and replaces it with a healthy heart from a recently deceased donor.

The surgeon connects the donor heart to the major blood vessels and hooks the heart up to wires that temporarily control the heartbeat. The procedure takes several hours.

To prevent the body from rejecting the donor heart, your surgeon will give you powerful drugs (immunosuppressants) immediately after surgery, and you must continue to take them.

For more information, see how a heart transplant is performed.

What To Expect After Surgery

After a heart transplant, the recovery process is similar to the process after other heart surgeries. People who receive transplants often need a cardiac rehabilitation program, because long-term heart failure is usually present.

You will spend about 4 to 8 weeks in the hospital after surgery, both for starting rehabilitation and monitoring the transplanted heart and for treating rejection if it occurs.

Find out more on what happens after a heart transplant.

Why It Is Done

A heart transplant is indicated only in the following situations:

• The person has end-stage heart failure, ischemic heart disease, cardiomyopathy, or congenital heart disease.
• The person has less than a 50% chance of living as long as 1 year without a heart transplant.
• The person has no other serious medical conditions that would reduce his or her life expectancy.
• The doctor strongly expects that a heart transplant will increase survival and improve the person's quality of life.¹

At some centers, transplant candidates must demonstrate that they have quit smoking and/or overusing alcohol for a period of time (such as 4 to 6 months) before they are considered for placement on a transplant waiting list.

How Well It Works

In carefully selected people, a heart transplant can be very successful.

About 79% of all people who receive heart transplants survive for at least 1 year, while 75% survive 5 years and 60% survive 10 years.²

Risks

Risks from heart transplant include:

• Rejection of the donor heart.
  • To check for rejection, every 3 to 4 months surgeons test a sample (biopsy) of the heart tissue and also perform echocardiography, electrocardiography (ECG, EKG), or blood tests.
  • If your body rejects the heart, you will receive additional drugs (such as immunosuppressants or steroids) to suppress your immune system so that it does not reject the donor heart. These additional drugs may have serious side effects, including an increased risk of infections and cancer.
• Other risks, such as:
  • Side effects (for example, infections, ulcers, or bone loss) that may occur from steroid therapy used to suppress the immune system.
  • Side effects that may occur from a drug (cyclosporine) given to prevent rejection of the donor heart.
  • Clogging of the arteries (atherosclerosis) that may develop in the donor heart. (This is usually a complication and is an important limiting factor that affects long-term survival.¹)
• Death.

What To Think About

After a heart transplant, you must follow a strict lifestyle involving daily medicines and regular medical care, which includes regular sampling (biopsies) of the transplanted heart tissue to check for rejection.

Statistics show a 1-year survival rate of just over 79% for heart transplant recipients.²

You may wait a year or longer for a donor heart. However, with maximal medical therapy, more than half of people on waiting lists survive for an extended period of time.

Candidates receive a donor heart according to the:

• Date they were placed on the waiting list.
• Severity of their heart failure symptoms.

There are limited donor hearts available.

Who performs heart transplants, and where are they done?

Complete the surgery information form (PDF)(What is a PDF document?) to help you prepare for this surgery.

Citations

1. Millane T, et al. (2000). ABC of heart failure: Acute and chronic management strategies. BMJ, 320(7234): 559–562.

2. Hunt SA, et al. (2001). Cardiac transplantation, mechanical ventricular support, and endomyocardial biopsy. In V Fuster et al., eds., Hurst's The Heart, 10th ed., vol. 1, pp. 725–747. New York: McGraw-Hill.