[Spanish Registry of Heart Transplantation. 15th Official Report of the Working Group on Heart Failure, Heart Transplantation and Other Therapeutic Alternatives of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (1984-2003)].

This paper outlines the general characteristics and results obtained with heart transplantation in Spain after including the data for the year 2003. In 2003, 290 heart transplants were performed. Since 1984, a total of 4386 procedures have been performed. The average clinical profile of patients receiving a heart transplant in Spain is that of a man about 50 years old, blood group A, with nonrevascularizable coronary artery disease and functional status IV/IV (NYHA). The percentage of emergency heart transplantations was 29%, which is higher than in the previous year (26%) and the mean for the preceding 5 years (20%). The early mortality rate was 13%, which is similar to the mean for the preceding 5 years (13%). After combining the 2003 results with those of the previous years, the probability of survival at 1, 5 and 10 years was 76%, 66% and 54%, respectively. When survival rates for separate periods were considered, a significant improvement was seen in the last 5 years, with survival rates at of 81% at 1 year and 74% at 5 years. The most frequent causes of death were acute graft failure in the first month, infection and rejection in the first year, and a combination of vascular disease of the graft with sudden death in the long term. Comparative analysis of survival rates shows that our long-term results are slightly better than those published in the literature, with a gradual tendency for survival rate to improve in recent years.