Survival Rates Lower For Heart Transplant Patients Whose Arteries Reclose After Stenting, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Study

Heart transplant patients are notorious for developing an aggressive form of coronary artery disease that can often result in heart failure, death or the need for repeat transplantation. The condition can also have a negative impact on future cardiac procedures, such as stenting. Transplant patients are among those at highest risk of adverse outcomes when receiving a stent to address a blockage in an artery. Compared with the general public, these patients have a much higher rate of restenosis, a side effect of stenting in which the artery becomes re-blocked because of an exaggerated scarring process at the stenting site.