Gender Match Helps Heart Transplants

(November 16, 2008) - If you need a heart transplant (Read about "Transplants") it appears that it's best to get one from a person of your own sex. Gender matching between donors and recipients is important to short- and long-term survival in heart transplantation, according to a retrospective study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2008.

"Heart size would seem to be the most obvious factor; beyond that, no one knows why sex matching is important to transplant survival," said Eric Weiss, M.D., first author of the study. "In clinical transplantation, we generally don't assume that organs from male and female donors have inherent differences affecting long-term outcomes, but our data suggest that there are important differences which must be taken into account."

Researchers analyzed data from 18,240 patients who received their first orthotopic (replacing a failing organ with a healthy one) heart transplant between 1998 and 2007. The patients were followed for 10 years, with the average follow-up time being 3.4 years.

Patients were sorted into four groups: male donor with male recipient, female donor with male recipient, male donor with female recipient, and female donor with female recipient.

Overall, 71 percent were matched by gender to their donor (77 percent of male recipients and 51 percent of female recipients). Twenty-five percent of patients died during the study.

Matching donor and recipient by gender resulted in:

• 13 percent lower risk of graft rejection within the first year
• 14 percent lower rate of graft rejection over the study period
• 25 percent drop in 30-day death rate
• 20 percent lower one-year death rate

Statistical modeling revealed that the greatest chance for death during the study occurred when pairing a male donor with a female recipient, which made the risk of death an estimated 20 percent higher compared to a male donor with male recipient. The most successful transplants occurred between male recipients and male donors, when the cumulative chance for survival was 61 percent.

Related Information:

    Coronary Heart Disease

    Congestive Heart Failure