Sunday, June 29, 2014

Heart transplant statuses and what they mean


Organs are allocated by UNOS to people who need them. There are many factors that go into selection of recipients including location, time on the waiting list, blood type and status. Each organ is categorized differently. For hearts there are 4 main statuses on the list.

Status 1A are the patients who are highest priority. These are patients who are hospitalized and may be in the intensive care unit. The require IV medication to keep their heart functioning and they also have invasive hemodynamic monitoring. There are different categories within status 1A to help differentiate the sickest patients.

Status 1B are the next highest priority. These patients are usually at home. They require IV medication to control their heart failure. They may also be patients with left ventricular assist devices. (LVADs).  This is a device that is implanted into the patient to keep the heart beating until a donor heart can become available.

Status 2 patients are home. They require oral medication to control their heart failure. These patients usually wait the longest because they are the lowest priority on the list.

Status 7 are patients who are inactive. A patient may become inactive while being treated for an infection, if they develop another complication or if they ask to become inactive.

Patients who are actively on the transplant list must maintain optimal health. Any infections interfere with their ability to receive a transplant. They must be as active as possible because the better shape they are in before surgery the better they will do after surgery.

Blood type is another major factor in determining a recipient. Patients with type O blood will wait the longest because it is the most common blood type. Some areas have more organs available than others. A transplant team will take all these factors into account to determine what is the optimal status for the patient.

You should look at the UNOS waiting list for each status of the center that you are considering. Some lists are longer than others and some move faster than others. There are some centers that will not list patients at status 2 because they will never receive a transplant and others that will actually find hearts for patients at status 2. If you live in an area where there are a lot of patients waiting and not a lot of hearts you may want to consider looking at other areas. Remember- you are your own best advocate and you have to make the decisions that are correct for you.

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