Effectiveness of Cytoimmunologic Monitoring for Rejection Follow-up in Orthotopic Heart Transplant Patients

Heart transplant patients need close monitoring of acute rejection in the postoperative period. Histopathological assessment of the endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) is essential for the diagnosis of acute rejection after heart transplantation. However cytoimmunologic monitoring (CIM) is a simple noninvasive method in the diagnos is of acute rejection which can be performed daily. In th is prospective study we investigated the efficacy of CIM in the early diagnosis of acute rejection in 13 cardiac allograft recipients. W e compared the data of CIM, EMB and the clinic status of patients. The sensitiv ity of CIM was calculated as 85,7 percent, the specificity 75 percent and the predictive value 85,7 percent We conclude that CIM helps timing of EMB and allows for reduction of its frequency. However, according to its lim ited help, it should be used together with other methods of rejection diagnosis.

Keywords: Heart transplantation, acute reject ion, endomyocardi al biopsy, cytoimmunologic monitoring