Postoperative care of adult cardiac transplant patients

Cardiac transplantation remains the definitive therapy for end-stage heart failure. Meticulous postoperative management is essential for optimizing successful outcomes in this relatively complex patient cohort. While the critical care considerations of heart transplant recipients are largely similar to that of other cardiac surgery patients, there exist important transplant-specific factors which require attention. This chapter provides a concise overview of post-transplant critical care. Key topics include initial evaluation, operative considerations, post-transplant physiology, hemodynamic management, dysrhythmias, immunosuppression, and organ-system based assessment and optimization.