Outcome after heart transplantation from older donor age: expanding the donor pool

Transplantations of hearts from donors >50 years (n=26) were compared to 136 transplantations of hearts from younger donors. Hearts from older donors were preferably transplanted to older recipients, who had also longer waiting times. Short- and long-term survival of both groups was similar, however, there was a tendency to a higher frequency of cardiac allograft vasculopathy in the group that received older hearts.