Heart Transplants and Heart Valve Disease: What Should Patients Know?

For patients who have had a successful heart transplant, the relief can be overwhelming. They often feel they’ve won a long battle with a failing heart and the wait for a matching donor. Even with this relief, patients know complications can arise, such as organ rejection, infection, and medication side effects. Heart valve disease is a less common condition that may also occur. When patients understand how valve problems can develop in a transplanted heart, they can be better prepared to seek treatment.

To learn more about heart transplant and valve disease, we spoke with Dr. Laura DiChiacchio. She is a leading cardiac surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. In addition to Dr. DiChiacchio’s experience with heart valve surgery, she also specializes in heart transplants.

Video available online at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUJlJH01cOc

Key Facts About Heart Transplant and Valve Disease

Here are the key insights shared by Dr. DiChiacchio:

• Transplanted hearts don’t commonly develop valve problems. "A small group of patients with a transplanted heart develop a problem with one of the valves," said Dr. DiChiacchio. "We’re lucky the incidence of valvular disease on the left side of a transplanted heart, so the aortic and mitral valve, is very low. It is rare that we must intervene again on an aortic or mitral valve."

• Monitoring a transplanted heart can affect valve function. Dr. DiChiacchio said, “However, what is unique about transplanted hearts is part of the surveillance and maintenance of those that require biopsies, wires, and catheters that go to the right side of the heart to take small biopsies to make sure there is no rejection occurring. The wires and catheters crossing a tricuspid valve can cause it to leak.”

• Interventions and outcomes of heart valve repair after heart transplantation. “I’ve had to go back and do tricuspid valve repairs on patients with transplanted hearts,” said Dr. DiChiacchio. “The patients have done very well. Sometimes it can be approached with a transcatheter option by the interventional cardiology team, but usually if there is a real problem, the most durable fix is to go back for another operation to repair or replace the tricuspid valve.”

Thanks Dr. DiChiacchio and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center!

On behalf of all the patients in our community, thank you, Dr. Laura DiChiacchio, for everything you and your team are doing at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California!

Related links:

• See Dr. Laura DiChiacchio's Interactive Surgeon Profile

• Learn About Christopher ‘Kid’ Reid’s Heart Transplant by Dr. DiChiacchio

Keep on tickin,
Adam

P.S. For the deaf and hard-of-hearing members of our patient community, we have provided a written transcript of our interview with Dr. DiChiaccio below.