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Older
People Do Just As Well After Heart Transplant
By Pam Harrison
Reuters Health, October 29, 2002
Heart transplant recipients 60 years of age and older at
the time of the operation fare as well in the long run as younger
patients, according to the longest study ever done of older people given a
donor heart.
Older patients are also less likely than younger patients
to experience any episodes of rejection, both soon after receiving the
transplant and over the long term, the study shows. Findings from the
study were presented here at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.
Dr. Philippe Demers of Stanford University School of
Medicine in California and colleagues compared outcomes for transplant
recipients between the ages of 18 and 60 at the time of the transplant and
recipients who were 60 to 70 years old when they received the transplant.
There were 403 patients in the younger group and 81 patients in the older
group.
Thirty days after patients had received their donor heart,
6% of both younger and older patients had died. Both groups of patients
spent 20 days in hospital, on average, Demers said.
While younger patients experienced an average of 2.6
episodes of rejection during the first few months after receiving their
transplant, older patients had only 2 rejection episodes over the same
time period.
One year later, 39% of older patients still had not shown
any signs of rejection, compared with 27% of younger patients. Survival
for older patients was also the same, up to 10 years after transplant, as
for the younger patients. At one year, 83% of younger patients were still
alive, compared with 88% of the older group. Five years later, 73% of the
younger group were still alive as were 75% of the older group, while 50%
of the younger group and 51% of the older group were still alive at 10
years.
As might be expected with increasing age, older patients
were more likely to develop various types of cancer over time than the
younger patients. On the other hand, older patients were no more likely to
develop lymphomas or infections than younger patients.
"We believe the critical element in transplant
patients over the age of 60 is careful pre-transplant assessment in order
to detect any cancer" that might be present prior to the operation,
Demers told delegates.
At Stanford, the upper
age limit for heart transplant recipients is between 70 to 75.
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© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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