Outcome of Heart Transplant Candidates Based on a High Volume Heart Transplant Center Experience in Iran

According to the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) current 1-year and 5-year survival after HTx is about 85% and 72.5%, respectively [2, 3]. RCMRC is a tertiary center for cardiovascular medicine in Iran. Since 2006, the Heart Failure and Transplantation Department at the RCMRC has been devoted to offering patients with heart failure the most cutting-edge, knowledge-based clinical care. The current team includes board-certified cardiologists who are expert in heart failure and transplantation, dedicated cardiac surgeons, echocardiographers and cardiac imaging specialists, nurse practitioners, transplant coordinators, specialized heart failure certified nurses, pharmacists, geneticists, social workers, dieticians, exercise physiologists, psychologists and all other consultant physicians (nephrologists, infectious specialists, pulmonologists, gastroenterologists, neurologists, endocrinologists and psychiatrists). Assessment of Heart Transplant Candidates According to the Ministry of Health (MOH) protocol, adult patients with end-stage cardiac disease who are candidates for heart transplantation will be evaluated by a thorough echocardiogram in accordance with the guidelines of the American Society of Echocardiography [12, 13], a cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPX) to evaluate their functional capacity, Heart Failure Survival Score (HFSS) [6] to evaluate their prognosis (particularly in those who have borderline CPX results) and standard right heart catheterization (RHC) to evaluate hemodynamics including pul- monary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP).