Penn Medicine is renowned for heart transplant research. Our expert physician-researchers participate in and lead studies to develop better, safer heart transplant procedures and technologies. These efforts help improve the standards of care and enhance patients' lives.
If you have advanced heart failure, clinical trials may also expand your options and provide access to new heart pumps, medication regimens or heart transplant techniques.
Penn researchers are continually starting new studies and complete existing ones. You can find out more by talking to your transplant team. Current areas of heart transplant research include:
Expanding the Pool of Available Hearts
Penn researchers led one of the first academic studies that paved the way for the use of heart transplants from donors who were positive for hepatitis C. Previously, we could not accept these organs. But as treatment for hepatitis C improved and a cure became available, we wanted to show that we could perform the transplant and treat the recipient for hepatitis C after.
We initiated the study in 2017 and became the first to publish a clinical protocol for transplanting a heart from a hepatitis C-positive donor. And now, there are up to 2,000 more hearts available across the U.S.
Developing Systems for Transporting Donor Hearts
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) coordinates organ matching in the U.S. When a donor heart becomes available, we work against the clock to transplant the heart as quickly as possible.
New systems are in development that increase the time a heart can remain viable outside the body. These "organ perfusion systems" circulate fluid and nutrients to the heart while in transit to keep it healthy longer. We are involved in studies evaluating organ perfusion systems. In the future, this technology will widen the pool of hearts available to our patients.
Detecting Heart Transplant Rejection with Blood Tests
When you receive a heart transplant, your immune system sees the new heart as a foreign invader and mounts an attack. Penn researchers are looking for new ways to detect rejection.
Currently we identify rejection with a heart biopsy. This invasive procedure requires collection of a small sample of heart tissue using a thin tube (catheter). Our doctor inserts the tube into a blood vessel in your neck and advances it to your heart. They pass small instruments through the tube to collect a tissue sample which they send to the laboratory for analysis.
Heart biopsies carry a risk of complications, such as blood clots, arrhythmia or infection at the biopsy site. Our researchers are investigating whether we can use blood tests to detect heart transplant rejection so patients can avoid invasive biopsies.
Preventing Heart Transplant Rejection
There are many types of medications we use to suppress your immune system so you don't reject your new heart. We are investigating whether other types of medications given just after transplant can reduce your risk of rejection.
Improving Selection of Transplant Candidates
Penn researchers are studying transplant patients to identify factors that are associated with worse outcomes.
For example, we know that patients with diabetes or poor kidney function do not do as well after heart transplant. What happens if a patient has both of these conditions? We are looking at all types of factors to find out if we can predict patient outcomes. These studies will help us refine the eligibility criteria we use to select patients for heart transplant.
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