Heart Transplants at Hospital Clínic

Hospital Clínic has a long tradition as a heart transplant centre. It has been carrying out these operations for 20 years and, up to December 2018, more than 360 transplants had been performed, including cardiohepatic and cardiorenal transplants.

Each year, an average of 20 patients receive a heart transplant at Hospital Clínic. By March 2019, 374 transplants had been performed. All patients are monitored in outpatient clinics and an average of 335 transplant patients are seen each year. 30-40 patients referred from other centres are also evaluated for heart transplants. There is a multidisciplinary evaluation and study of candidate patients for this procedure, including surgical, immunological, nutritional, psychiatric, social, and anaesthetic evaluations.

Hospital Clínic’s experience is based on it being a pioneer in implementing various procedures, including:

• Assessing the degree of secondary pulmonary hypertension in heart failure and specific treatment.
• Pre-qualification of the patient on the heart transplant list.
• Post-transplant monitoring of complications: graft dysfunction, and cellular rejection caused by antibodies, infections, malignancies and allograft vasculopathy.
• Complex and combined transplants. The following have been performed: three retransplants, all for allograft vasculopathy; 14 multiorgan transplants; 6 cardiorenal transplants; 4 cardiohepatic transplants (amyloidosis due to transthyretin gene mutation and congenital disease with cardiac cirrhosis); and 4 cardiac transplants involving sequential bone marrow transplant (AL amyloidosis).