Combined Heart and Kidney Transplantation in Patient with Postpartum Cardiomyopathy and Renal Failure / 대한흉부외과학회지

ABSTRACT

Heart and kidney transplantation has made great progress in the modern era. Coupled with the growing successes in individual solid organ transplantation, there has also been an increase in the number of multiple organ transplants, such as heart-kidney transplantation. This trend has been in part due to a better understanding of immunobiology, advances in surgical technique and postoperative care, and an often-common pathologic association between dual-organ failure. This pathologic course is representative for end-stage heart failure leading to secondary renal dysfunction or failure, or for end-stage renal failure as a cause for (uremic) cardiomyopathy. However, refractory cardiac failure has long been considered a contraindication to kidney transplantation. Additionally, cardiac transplantation has been denied for patients with end-stage renal disease. Over recent years, combined heart-kidney transplantation has been offered to select patients who were once denied transplantation. We report the first experience of combined heart-kidney transplantation with one year follow-up results.