AHA Scientific Sessions 2026 AbstractNov 7, 2026, 00:49 GMT

Heart transplant survival was similar after two types of donation

Five-year mortality was similar after circulatory-death versus brain-death donation, with a hazard ratio of 0.99 comparing death rates over time.

Paper by Efrain Castillo, Maria Osorio, Omar Wever-Pinzon, Rosario A. Colombo, Mailen Fernandez Gonzalez · University of Miami

Heart cross-sections in dark and light blue-green show similarly intact chambers beside small groups of upright, faceless people.

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Interventions

Studied:: Cohort study of 21,970 adult heart transplant recipients, five years, against DBD recipients
What changed:: Five-year mortality did not differ between circulatory-death and brain-death donation (unadjusted HR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.87-1.13)
The catch:: The abstract did not give the donor-age range to inform specific age cutoffs
Why it’s aging research:: It looks at how biology varies with age or lifespan.

Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News

Paper

The observational registry analysis included 21,970 adults with follow-up after a first heart-only transplant from 2019 through 2025. Of these, 2,698 received hearts donated after circulation stopped rather than after brain death. Models accounted for several donor and recipient characteristics. Survival was similar at one and five years.

Donor age did not significantly change the one-year association. At five years, increasing donor age was associated with a more favorable relative death rate for circulatory-death donation compared with brain-death donation. Dialysis, a procedure that filters the blood, was more frequent after circulatory-death donation: 20.4% versus 16.0%. Stroke, permanent pacemaker implantation and treated rejection did not differ between groups.

Why it matters

Early programs limited circulatory-death donors to under 40 over concerns that interrupted blood flow could worsen age-related cardiovascular changes. The authors said the findings support continued evaluation of donor-age limits.

Caveats

The registry comparison could not rule out differences in donor or recipient selection beyond the factors included in the models. The conference abstract did not give the donor-age range, limiting how precisely the results inform age cutoffs.