New York, NY, January 7, 2016 - To determine patient eligibility for heart transplant, the International Society for Heart Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) maintains a list of criteria, first issued in 2006, that acts as a guideline for physicians. A major 10-year update has now been issued and published in The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation , which is freely available at http://www.jhltonline.org .
"The 2016 ISHLT Listing Criteria for Heart Transplantation: A 10-Year Update," focuses on evolving areas of importance not fully addressed previously, including infectious diseases such as the candidate with HIV and hepatitis, congenital heart disease, and restrictive cardiomyopathies. In addition, all of the original 2006 guidelines have been updated to incorporate newly available information and instances in which evolution in clinical practice demanded significant changes. For practitioners, the update includes 145 references to the recent literature concerning heart transplantation.
This multi-disciplinary effort between the ISHLT Heart Failure and Transplantation, Pediatric and Infectious Disease Councils included 15 task force members from eight nations, and was chaired by Mandeep R. Mehra, MD, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Medical Director, Heart and Vascular Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston MA, and Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation .
"There are many controversial issues in the guidelines that we have tackled head on including heart transplantation in previously denied conditions (HIV, hepatitis amyloidosis, certain congenital heart diseases) that we now allow or recommend more lenient listing," noted Dr. Mehra. "The 2006 guidelines were particularly important in that we recommended against an age limit for transplantation or time dependency for patients with previously healed cancers (e.g. waiting a minimum of five years for freedom from cancers). The new guidelines not only update several of these prior issues, but also tackle the most controversial topics of our times."
Notable changes to the 2006 guidelines include:
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The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation