Heart Transplant Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Heart Transplant, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery, organ donation.

Symptomatic acute myocardial infarction in a patient bearer of heart transplantation following ischemic heart disease.

Fazio G, Sutera L, Vernuccio D, Fazio M, Novo S

In 2005 Syeda et al. reported that the major factor limiting the long term of cardiac transplantation is the development of accelerated arteriosclerosis that occurs in the coronary arteries of the cardiac allograft. Transplant arteriosclerosis is characterized by diffuse, uniform, concentric narrowing of the artery by a fibrous proliferation of sub-intima cells. This atherosclerosis was estimate to occur in approximately 50% of patients by 5 years after transplantation. Unfortunately, as a consequence of cardiac denervation, symptoms are often atypical or completely absent. When these are present, the symptoms are those typical of effort angina. Very uncommon is the acute coronary syndrome. We present a case of a patient, underwent to a cardiac transplant for ischemic cardiomyopathy that after 10 years from the transplantation, was affected by an anterior myocardial infarct. In our case the presence of a single noncircumferential atherosclerotic plaque makes to think that it is a consequence of a patient's systemic atherosclerotic disease better then the result of the heart transplant's typical atherosclerosis.

Published 4 February 2008 in Int J Cardiol, 124(2): 233-6.
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