For these patients, transplantation is the only hope for survival as medical therapy or conventional heart surgery is no longer helpful. Without a heart transplant, survival will be limited to one or two years. Other disorders, such as heart valve diseases, congenital defects, and viral infections, can also weaken the heart and may lead to transplantation. Length of stay in the ICU depends on each patient's medical condition, but usually patients stay for 12 to 48 hours. The patient is then cared for in our Multi-Organ Transplant Unit and may later be transferred to the ward for all heart surgery patients.
Patients usually stay in hospital for one to three weeks.
After transplantation, the patient's immune system recognizes that the heart is a foreign tissue. It is normal for the immune system to try to reject the new organ. All transplant recipients must take drugs to prevent rejection . Although researchers continue to study new drugs, cyclosporine remains the main immunosuppressive drug. Cyclosporine or tacrolimus is used in combination with other drugs, such as prednisone and mycophenolate mofetil.