Objective: To evaluate the incidence of infection, the etiological agents, to present the clinical aspects and the surgical morbi-mortality in patients who underwent cardiac transplant at Federal University of São Paulo. Material and Methods: From November 1966 to June 1998, a total of 97 patients were operated by the UNIFESP Cardiovascular Surgery team and survived longer than 1 week after the transplantation and were studied retrospectively as far as infections. The age of the patients ranged from 3 to 63 years (average 44.4 ± 13 years). Most of the patients had dilated myocardiopathy (46), or Chagas (24) or ischemis (23). The follow up ranged from 0.33 to 119 months (36 ± 30.7 months) Results: Of the 97 patients, 16 (16.4%) had infection as the main cause of death, followed by rejection in 10 (10.3%). The causes of infection were: bacterial sepsis in 6 patients, pneumonia in 6, intra-abdominal infection in 2, toxoplasmosis in 1 and cytomegalovirus infection in 1. There were 142 infection episodes, bacterial 76 (52.5%), viral 34 (28.8%), fungi 20 (17.5%) and protozoa 12 (12.4%). There were 8 episodes of the reactivation were treated successfully with alopurinol. Conclusions: Our data showed the predominance of bacterial infections as the cause of most mortality. In transplanted patients suffering from Chagas´disease, the reactivation of the disease may be adequately controlled by means of alopurinol. Such data serve as orientation in our community for our programs of transplants, since they show particular aspects of our enviroment.
Heart transplantation; Heart transplantation; Heart transplantation; Infection; Infection; Infection
