Cardiac transplantation at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation--the first 10 years.

Cardiac transplantation in adults currently achieves a 90% one-year survival. Current policies of matching, rejection therapy, and infection prophylaxis have neutralized some variables that previously had been associated with increased risk. Small size or young age continues to be a high risk situation. In our recent experience 2 factors have emerged that were not risk factors previously: ischemic duration and female gender.