Heart transplant after angioplasty

[usmansaeed22]

Hi my father is 60 years old he had recently gone under angioplasty where he had one stent placed as suggested by his cardic doctor. He is having heart disease for now more than 13 years and had already gone an open heart surgery in year 1995. After all this he is regularly taking medicine and has started angina after eating a little heavy meal or climbing stairs or while walking I think he is having unstable angina from time to time in a day where he had to take once or twice Nitroglycerin in order to get releif. He is diabetic too can anyone tell me that if he can go under heart transplant ? or What is the best possible treatment of angina in his condition ?

[grendslori]

Heart transplantation is not something you go into lightly! Usually you are a Class IV heart patient when you go for a transplant and it doesn't sound like your father is at that classification yet. Those patients have angina at rest; your father is having angina while active. Usually, if there is a question of transplant, your father's doctor will refer him to a transplant team. It is the transplant team (comprised of many people in different fields who make that determination, not just the doctors) The treatments that your father is receiving are the main treatments that are available. When a patient is evaluated for transplant they usually have a life span of only 18 months left; that is the time frame for trying to get a new heart. You are told that a transplant is only a band-aid, it is certainly not a cure for heart disease, it only extends life for a period of time. Some patients can live many years, other's don't make it out of the hospital alive. The drug regiment is brutal in the sense, you miss two doses of your meds, you need an IV. You are always having to have biopsies done and medical proceedures as well for the rest of your life. This is far worse than anything your father has been through before. The transplanted heart is denerved which means there is no nerves connected to the brain; the heart ONLY beats on adrenalin. Age can play a factor as well as the diabetes on whether or not your father could be accepted for transplant. Understand that this is not something you take on without SERIOUSLY thinking about it first.

[fulloflifemom]

I'm not sure how sick your father is at this point. I do know his Ejection Fraction has to be under 25%. I also received information that diabetics are not canidates for Heart Transplantation.  On the other hand, Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC has done a transplant on a Type 1 Diabetic around 4 years ago.  He received a heart and a kidney the same day.  Hope this helps....

[grendslori]

The EF%s only play a part in this if the heart is in Systolic Heart failure. People with Diastolic Heart Failure rarely have low EF%s and can have a transplant with a normal EF%.