Heart Transplant – Everolimus Reduces Side Effects

Treatment everolimus is significantly more effective in reducing the severity and incidence of serious complications in heart transplant patients than the current standard in therapy, according to a recent study at the Advanced Heart Failure Center at Temple University Hospital and School of Medicine.

Treatment everolimus is significantly more effective in reducing the severity and incidence of serious complications in heart transplant patients than the current standard in therapy, according to a recent study at the Advanced Heart Failure Center at Temple University Hospital and School of Medicine. The study focused on certain complications such as acute rejection and cardiac allograft vasculopathy, the thickening of the innermost wall of the transplanted heart’s coronary arteries. More than 600 cardiac transplantation patients enrolled in the study at 52 medical centers in the United States, Canada, Europe and South America.”After one year post-transplant, cardiac allograft vasculopathy is the most serious cause of long-term complications and death,” explained Dr. Howard Eisen, from Temple. “It is the major reason why many transplant patients do not survive long term. The impressive ability of everolimus to decrease the incidence and severity of cardiac allograft vasculopathy could offer transplant patients a powerful tool to improve long-term survival-one of the major challenges in transplantation. Further, everolimus reduced the rate of acute rejection, a major problem for these patients in the first year after transplant.”Researchers also reported that everolimus significantly reduced the incidence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, a major infection after transplantation and an important risk factor for the development of cardiac allograft vasculopathy.Described as a “proliferation inhibitor,” everolimus appears to target many of the underlying causes of cardiac allograft vasculopathy. The drug was developed by Novartis and has been submitted for regulatory review for use in both kidney and heart transplantation in the USA, Canada and the European Union.(Source: M.S.W.: ZoeMed: Cardiac Life Centre: 30th August 2003)