Background: It's unclear whether pre-transplant T. gondii seropositivity is associated with impaired survival in heart transplant recipients.
Objectives: To test the above-mentioned hypothesis in the Spanish Heart Transplantation Registry.
Methods: Post-transplant outcomes of 4048 patients aged >16years who underwent first, single-organ heart transplantation in 17 Spanish institutions from 1984 to 2014 were studied. Long-term post-transplant survival and survival free of cardiac death or retransplantation of 2434 (60%) T. gondii seropositive recipients and 1614 (40%) T. gondii seronegative recipients were compared.
Results: T. gondii seropositive recipients were older, had higher body mass index, and presented higher prevalence of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, COPD and Cytomegalovirus seropositivity than T. gondii seronegative recipients. In univariable analysis, pre-transplant T. gondii seropositivity was associated with increased post-transplant all-cause mortality (non-adjusted HR 1.15; 95% CI 1.04-1.26). However, this effect was no longer statistically significant after multivariable adjustment by recipient's age and sex (adjusted HR 1.01, 95% CI 0.92-1.11). Extended multivariable adjustment by other potential confounders showed similar results (adjusted HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.89-1.11). T. gondii seropositivity had no significant effect on the composite outcome cardiac death or retransplantation (non-adjusted HR 1.08, 95% CI 0.95-1.24, p=0.235). The distribution of the causes of death was comparable in T. gondii seropositive and T. gondii seronegative recipients. No statistically significant impact of donor's T. gondii serostatus or donor-recipient T. gondii serostatus matching on post-transplant survival was observed.
Conclusions: Our analysis did not show a significant independent effect of preoperative T. gondii serostatus on long-term outcomes after heart transplantation.
Keywords: Heart transplantation; Outcomes; Survival; Toxoplasma gondii.
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