Ortothopic heart transplantation (OHT) was performed in 110 patients at the Heart Institute, between march 1985 and february 1993 for treatment of terminal cardiomyopathy. From these patients, 24 had a survival period of more than 36 months and were selected for a long term analysis of the left ventricular function. They were observed in a 56 months average follow-up. The patients were 44.3 years old average, being 21 (87.5%) male. The ethiology of the cardiac diseases was dilated cardiomyopathy for 13 (54.2%) patients, ischemic for 8 (33.3%) patients and Chagas' Disease for 3 (12.5%) patients. All patients were initially in functional class IV (NYHA). They were evaluated by cinecoronariography, hemodynamic and echocardiographic studies preoperatively, and every year in a 5 years follow-up. The results suggest that: 1) all patients presented left ventricular hipertrophy as an adaptative mechanism; 2) the arterial hypertension was observed since the first year of follow-up; 3) the acute rejection episodes and the myocardiopathy ethiology did not interfere on the left ventricular function; 4) the acelerated atherosclerosis had a negative effect on left ventricular function; 5) the echocardiographic and hemodynamic evaluation showed a left ventricular function stability of 5 years after surgery; nevertheless, it was observed an important reduction of the cardiac index associated with a crescent increase of abnormal measures results, suggesting a late reduction of the left ventricular performance.
heart transplantation; heart transplantation