Donor diabetes status impacts long-term survival in diabetic heart transplant recipients.
Diabetic donor hearts linked to worse 10-year survival in diabetic recipients
Donor diabetes status impacts long-term survival in diabetic heart transplant recipients.
Survival for heart transplant recipients with type 2 diabetes mellitus is reduced; however, the effect of donor diabetes in this cohort is unknown.
The United Network for Organ Sharing database was queried to identify adult diabetic recipients undergoing single-organ heart transplantation between 2005 and 2025.
Diabetic donor hearts associated with 26% higher hazard of death over 10 years
Of 13,091 heart transplant recipients identified, 540 (4%) received a diabetic donor heart and 12,551 (96%) received a non-diabetic donor heart.
Recipients in the diabetic donor group were older (60.0 years [IQR 54.0-65.0] vs 59.0 [52.0-64.0], p < 0.001) and had shorter waitlist times (44.5 days [IQR 14.0-185.5] vs 60.0 [17.0-213.0], p = 0.02).
Donors with diabetes were older (41.0 years [IQR 34.0-48.0] vs 32.0 [23.0-41.0], p < 0.001), had a higher prevalence of hypertension (55.9% vs 15.2%, p < 0.001), and were more likely to have donor-recipient sex mismatch (26.9% vs 21.5%, p = 0.003).
Propensity score matching produced 539 pairs.
Diabetic heart transplant recipients experience worse long-term survival when a diabetic donor heart is utilized.