Progress and Challenges in Heart Transplantation
A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular and Translational Medicine".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2026 | Viewed by 218
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Heart transplantation remains the gold standard for end-stage heart failure, with one-year survival rates exceeding 90% globally. However, the field faces persistent challenges, including donor organ shortage, recipient complexity, and long-term complications such as cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) and chronic rejection. Innovations in donor selection, mechanical circulatory support (MCS), and novel immunosuppressive therapies are reshaping clinical practices, while emerging technologies like donation after circulatory death (DCD) and artificial hearts offer new hope for expanding the donor pool and improving outcomes.
This Special Issue will explore cutting-edge advancements and unresolved challenges in heart transplantation, including, but not limited to, the following:
- Donor Selection and Organ Utilization
- High-risk donor criteria (e.g., age, comorbidities, DCD hearts) and their impact on post-transplant survival.
- Strategies to optimize organ preservation (e.g., hypothermic machine perfusion, novel preservation solutions).
- Surgical and Mechanical Innovations
- Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) as bridge-to-transplant or destination therapy, with a focus on infection reduction, wireless monitoring, and AI-driven hemodynamic optimization.
- Right ventricular assist devices (RVADs) and total artificial hearts (TAHs) for biventricular failure.
- Pediatric-specific MCS advancements to address size mismatches and long-term durability.
- Immunosuppression and Rejection Management
- Personalized immunosuppressive regimens to minimize toxicity while preventing acute/chronic rejection.
- Biomarkers for early detection of antibody-mediated rejection (AMR) and CAV.
- Novel therapies targeting T-cell and B-cell pathways, including CAR-T and gene editing approaches.
- Emerging Therapies and Future Directions
- Xenotransplantation (pig-to-human) and 3D-bioprinted cardiac tissues as potential solutions to organ scarcity.
- Gene therapy for genetic cardiomyopathies pre-transplant.
- Machine learning in predicting transplant outcomes and optimizing donor-recipient matching.
We invite original research articles and reviews addressing the above themes.
Dr. Ricardo Gimeno Costa
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- heart transplantation
- donor selection
- organ utilization
- immunosuppression
- rejection management
- emerging therapies
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