Causes of Death
One patient died during surgery due to cardiogenic shock. In this case,
the surgical indication was EHF due to Fontan failure, and it had 6.8
and 11.5 hours of ischemia and surgical time, respectively. There were
82 surviving recipients. The postoperative mortality was 15.9% (13
patients), and the principal causes of death were infection in 6
patients and acute rejection in 5. Hospital mortality was 7.3%; 2 died
in the post-HTx 72-hours, one from cardiogenic shock, and one during
reoperation due to revision of hemostasis. After the post-HTx 72-hours,
three patients died from septic shock and one from acute humoral
rejection. During the follow-up after hospital discharge, three patients
died from cardiogenic shock due to 3R acute cellular rejection, two from
septic shock, one from massive pulmonary thromboembolism, and one from
septic and cardiogenic shock due to 3R acute cellular rejection. One of
the recipients, who died from cardiogenic shock due to 3R acute cellular
rejection, had blood type O- while the heart donor was O+. Causes of
death after HTx are shown in Table 3.