At the Instituto do Coração, University of São Paulo Medical School, 11 patients were submitted to heart transplantation from march 1985 up to february 1986. All were male, with ages of 39-59 years, 6 with coronary heart disease, 4 with dilated cardiomyopathy and 1 with Chagas cardiomyopathy. The patients were studied hemodynamically with a Swan-Ganz catheter pre-operatively, at the arrival in the intensive care unit, in the first postoperative day and 30 or more days after the transplant. The data showed that there was a progressive increase of cardiac index and decreases of pulmonary artery pressure, capilary pulmonary wedge pressure, pulmonary vascular resistance and systemic vascular resistance. Three of the 11 patients had immediate renal dysfunction that returned to normal by the 15th day. Late postoperatively 2 patients had increase of creatinine levels. Only 3 patients had no rejection episodes; among the others these episodes were represented by hystological alterations with no clinical manifestations. Infections complications occurred in 9 patients and were easily clinically treated. Late postoperatively, hypertension was present in 8 patients; in 2 of them it was moderate. There was no death in these 11 patients; all are symptom free and the first 6 are working.
heart transplantation