The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol 52, 1230-1235, Copyright © 1991 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Weight is not an accurate criterion for adult cardiac transplant size matching
BB Chan, KJ Fleischer, JD Bergin, VC Peyton, TL Flanagan, JA Kern, CG Tribble, RS Gibson and IL Kron
Department of Surgery and Cardiology, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville 22908.
Owing to the limited availability of donor hearts, standard donor criteria
for heart size matching need to be reexamined. The current practice at most
centers is to match the donor's body weight to within +/- 20% of the
recipient's. Our hypothesis was that minimal differences exist in heart
sizes of the adult donor population, and therefore, the donor pool could be
expanded for any given patient. M-mode echocardiographic measurements of
left and right ventricular internal dimensions, left ventricular mass, and
percent fractional shortening were reviewed in 235 normal adult subjects
(101 men, 134 women). Low correlation coefficients and a high degree of
variance were consistently observed between cardiac parameters and body
size. There were no significant differences in left ventricular internal
dimension when women weighing 40 to 109 kg were compared with men
statistically different among men weighing 50 to 99 kg. No difference was
noted in right ventricular size among men and women. Echocardiography is a
simple and accurate technique to assess cardiac dimensions. Body weight
does not correlate well with adult cardiac size and should not be used as
an exclusion criterion for a donor heart.
