Strong Heart and Vascular Center

Transplant

Suitable Donor Heart

Criteria for the Allocation of Donor Hearts

The demand for donor hearts is greater than the supply. The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is the organization that manages the fair allocation of the limited number of donor hearts.

The major criteria to pick the appropriate recipient are:

• Blood type
• Size match between donor and recipient
• Medical condition of the recipient
• Waiting time of the recipient

Geography also plays a role, as a donor heart cannot safely be outside of the body for more than four hours.

Patients are grouped into categories according to the severity of their heart condition. Categories are:

• Status 1A

This includes very ill patients who are in the hospital and need one or more of the following -- Swan-Ganz catheter; constant inotropic medicines; mechanical ventilation; mechanical circulatory support with a total artificial heart, a left and/or right ventricular assist system or an intra-aortic balloon pump but has objective medical evidence of significant device-
related complications.

• Status 1B

  This includes hospitalized patients who are medically stable but need constant inotropic medicines or mechanical circulatory support with a left and/or right ventricular assist system.
• Status 2

This includes all patients who do not meet the above standards - generally those waiting at home.

The order of the waiting list can change. Patients may improve enough from other treatments to be taken off the list. Other patients may become less stable, so they move higher on the list.