"Quilty" revisited: a 10-year perspective.

The goals of this study were to better define Quilty lesions, facilitating differentiation from other endocardial infiltrates; to correlate Quilty lesions with clinical parameters; and to assess whether classification into Quilty A (noninvasive lesions) and Quilty B (invasive lesions) had clinical utility. Two hundred seventeen adults who received transplants between 1981 and 1987 and 22 children who received transplants between 1981 and 1989 were studied. Allograft survival for over 1 year was the selection criterion. Clinical, angiographic, and biopsy data were reviewed up to 1992, obtaining a minimum follow up of 5 years for adults and 3 years for children. All 7,439 endomyocardial biopsy cases were allotted an International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) grade for rejection, and Quilty was classified as Quilty A or B. Quilty was correlated with transplant recipient age and gender, cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection, treatment protocols, allograft rejection, graft vascular disease (GVD), and lymphoma. Immunohistochemistry was performed to determine Quilty cell composition. Quilty incidence was 49.77% in adults and 68.18% in children, and did not appear to be influenced by cyclosporine dosage. Quilty showed no gender variation nor association with cytomegalovirus (CMV) or EBV infection or lymphoma. A total of 74.04% of adults developed Quilty within the first year posttransplant and 81.48% had multiple Quilty-positive biopsies. One hundred eight of 217 Quilty-positive adults had 456 Quilty-positive endomyocardial biopsies, 82.24% of which were associated with an ISHLT grade of 0 or I, and only 12.28% being associated with a grade III rejection. Histological division into Quilty A and Quilty B did not appear to have clinical significance. Graft vascular disease appears to have decreased significantly more in Quilty-positive patients. Although our findings in children were similar to those in the adults, we were unable to draw definite conclusions, the number of children being too small to permit valid statistical correlations.