Spanish Registry on Heart Transplantation. 24th Official Report of the Working Group on Heart Failure and Heart Transplantation of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (1984-2012).

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: The present article reports the characteristics and results of heart transplantation in Spain since this therapeutic modality was first used in May 1984.

METHODS: We summarize the main features of recipients, donors, and surgical procedures, as well as the results of all heart transplantations performed in Spain until December 31, 2012.

RESULTS: A total of 247 heart transplantations were performed in 2012. The whole series consisted of 6775 procedures. Recent years have seen a progressive worsening in the clinical characteristics of recipients (34% aged over 60 years, 22% with severe kidney failure, 17% with insulin-dependent diabetes, 29% with previous heart surgery, 16% under mechanical ventilation) and donors (38% aged over 45 years, 26% with recipient: donor weight mismatch>20%), and in surgical conditions (29% of procedures at >4h ischemia and 36% as emergency transplantations). The probability of survival at 1, 5, 10, and 15 years of follow-up was 78%, 67%, 53%, and 38%, respectively. These results have remained stable since 1995.

CONCLUSIONS: In recent years, the number of heart transplantations/year in Spain has remained stable at around 250. Despite the worsening of recipient and donor clinical characteristics and of time-to-surgery, the results in terms of mortality have remained stable and compare favorably with those of other countries. Full English text available from:www.revespcardiol.org/en.