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TRANSPLANT GUIDELINES
TRANSPLANT GUIDELINES
ANCHOR LEAD :GUIDELINES FOR HEART TRANSPLANT ELIGIBILITY HAVE BEEN EXPANDED, ELIZABETH TRACEY REPORTS
More people may now be eligible for heart transplants as new guidelines from the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation, co-authored by Johns Hopkins cardiologist Stuart Russell, are adopted. Russell says the new guidelines were developed as a result of a few transplant centers relaxing their criteria and assessing the impact on outcomes.
RUSSELL: As more and more centers around the country have done this, it really became obvious that patients who in the past we thought were too old for transplant, or for other reasons were not eligible for transplant, could still have a very meaningful and substantial quality and quantity of life post-transplant, using a more high risk donor, let alone a normal donor-type heart. :24
More donor hearts may now be considered useable, which may help ease the shortage of organs for transplantation, although more people will now be waiting for hearts as well. I’m Elizabeth Tracey reporting
