Heart transplants benefit only the sickest patients
Heart transplantation improves survival only in patients with the worst heart failure and therefore at the highest risk of death while on the waiting list, according to a study in this week?s BMJ. This questions the current view in the medical community that transplantation improves the chances of survival for all patients who reach an advanced stage of heart failure. Deng and colleagues identified all 889 adult patients listed for a first heart transplant in Germany in 1997. Patients were grouped according to disease severity ? low, medium and high risk of dying on the waiting list ? and a heart failure survival score was calculated for each patient. The authors found that only patients in