Size and Gender Matching in Heart Transplantation – Optimizing Donor Utilization in an Era of Changing Donor and Recipient Characteristics

Abstract

Heart transplantation is limited by donor organ availability. Increased use of marginal donor organs, combined with increased recipient complexity, has increased the risk of primary graft failure. These changes in donor and recipient characteristics have led to a renewed focus on modifiable donor–recipient characteristics that have historically been shown to impact on post-transplant outcomes, namely size and gender matching. Recently published analyses of large registries have found that the use of body weight to size donor organs for transplantation fails to predict post-transplant outcomes, whereas newer methods such as predicted heart mass (utilizing height, age, and gender as well as weight) correlate well with a number of post-transplant outcomes, including survival. The well recognized risks of under-sizing in female donor:male recipient transplants and in recipients with increased pulmonary vascular resistance are reinforced by recent studies. Over-sizing is not associated with increased risk or survival benefit versus ideally matched adult donor hearts.