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Ann Thorac Surg 2002;74:1079
© 2002 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Invited commentary

^a The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 8th Floor Main, 34th Street and Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA

e-mail: decampli@email.chop.edu

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Wilhelmi and colleagues from Hannover Medical School have presented an echocardiographic assessment of long-term survivors of heart transplantation. Their results corroborate those demonstrated by other surveys, ie, (1) general "preservation" of left ventricular morphology and systolic function beyond the first decade and (2) a significant incidence of left atrial dysfunction, right ventricular enlargement and tricuspid regurgitation.

The main problem with isolated surveys of graft left ventricular function after transplantation is the inherent bias in the survey method, ie, their authors are most often interested in the characteristics of current survivors rather than also in those that died. The study design biases . . . [Full Text of this Article]