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Management after heart transplantation usually focuses on risks for rejection and infection, but preliminary evidence has suggested that early cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) might be a major determinant of post-transplantation outcomes. Two new, simultaneously published multicenter studies seem to confirm the predictive value of early CAV after orthotopic heart transplantation.
One study, sponsored by a manufacturer of immunosuppressive drug therapy for organ-transplant recipients, included 125 patients who underwent heart transplantation before 1998; the other study included 143 subjects who underwent transplantation from December 1992 to January 1998. In both studies, CAV was defined as a ≥0.5-mm increase in maximal intimal thickness…