Autopsy-determined causes of death in solid organ transplant recipients

The aim of this study was to review the main causes of death as determined by autopsy of deceased solid organ transplant recipients. We reviewed 156 autopsies including 76 heart, 32 liver, 29 kidney, and 19 lung transplant recipients. The mean survival period varied depending on the transplanted org...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Transplantation proceedings Vol. 36; no. 3; pp. 787 - 789
Main Authors:	Sanromán Budiño, B, Vázquez Martul, E, Pértega Dı́az, S, Veiga Barreiro, A, Carro Rey, E, Reboredo, J.Mosquera
Format:	Journal Article Conference Proceeding
Language:	English
Published:	New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01-04-2004 Elsevier Science
Subjects:	Anesthesia. Intensive care medicine. Transfusions. Cell therapy and gene therapy Autopsy Biological and medical sciences Cause of Death Clinical death. Palliative care. Organ gift and preservation Humans Infection - mortality Medical sciences Postoperative Complications - mortality Retrospective Studies Surgery (general aspects). Transplantations, organ and tissue grafts. Graft diseases Transplantation - mortality Human Treatment Autopsy Indication Surgery Mortality Cause Graft Death Transplantation Homotransplantation Organ
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Summary:	The aim of this study was to review the main causes of death as determined by autopsy of deceased solid organ transplant recipients. We reviewed 156 autopsies including 76 heart, 32 liver, 29 kidney, and 19 lung transplant recipients. The mean survival period varied depending on the transplanted organ: namely heart, 497 days; liver, 189 days; kidney, 1124 days; and lung, 252 days. Infections were the most common cause of death in all groups, varying from 21% in heart to 63% in lung recipients. Acute rejection, chronic rejection, and malignancies only appeared as the cause of death in heart recipients (14.5%, 9.2%, and 4%, respectively). Primary graft failure was present in heart (15.7%), kidney (3.4%), and lung (5.3%) recipients. The highest rate of surgical complications as a cause of death was observed in heart transplant recipients. In all groups there was a significant percentage (about 30%) of other pathologies that were responsible for death, such as pulmonary embolism, central nervous system pathology, acute pancreatitis, digestive hemorrhage, and acute myocardial infarction. Our results emphasize that infections are the main cause of death within the first year posttransplant, independent of the organ transplanted.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0041-1345 1873-2623
DOI:	10.1016/j.transproceed.2004.03.044