Amyloidosis and Heart Transplantation in a New Era

Background: The prognosis in patients with advanced cardiac amyloidosis (CA) remains poor.

Objectives: We sought to describe survival post heart transplantation (HT) in amyloid compared with non-amyloid recipients, highlight waitlist times within the new allocation system across three Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) regions, and describe multiorgan transplantation (MOT) in hereditary amyloidosis.

Methods: This is a retrospective review of end-stage CA patients who underwent HT at Mayo Clinic from January 2007 to December 2020. Wait time was compared in the new versus old OPTN allocation era starting December 18, 2018 by Wilcoxon rank sum test. All-cause mortality for those with and without CA was compared using Kaplan-Meier estimates with log rank analysis, censoring December 16, 2022.

Results: Fifty-five patients with CA underwent HT between 2007 and 2020, 8 light chain amyloidosis (AL) (14.5%), 28 hereditary transthyretin (ATTRv) (50.9%), 17 wildtype transthyretin (ATTRwt) (30.9%), and 2 hereditary apolipoprotein A1 (AApoA1) amyloidosis patients (3.6%). No significant difference in overall survival post-transplant was seen in amyloid compared with non-amyloid (p = 0.816). Median time to HT was shorter in the new system, 45 days (IQR 24, 78) versus 174 days (IQR 76.5, 483.5), p = 0.006. There was a decline in MOT in hereditary amyloidosis over time with the concomitant rise in disease-targeted therapies.

Conclusions: HT survival in CA patients was similar to non-amyloid patients. The new allocation system benefits this cohort with shorter wait times. There is less MOT in hereditary amyloidosis with increased utilization of disease-targeted therapy.