Adherence with immunosuppression in heart transplant recipients.

Abstract

Nonadherence is a major problem in heart transplantation (htx) and a challenge for clinical practice and research. In heart transplant recipients, nonadherence could cause chronic rejection of the transplanted heart followed by difficult clinical course and/or death of the patient. Main topics are the relationship between psychological aspects and adherence, risk factors and prediction of nonadherence, strategies for improving adherence like single-dose immunosuppressant therapy and follow-up studies. There is a lack of behavioral intervention studies. So-called targeted interventions should be defined for clinical practice and research with randomized controlled studies.