The International Thoracic Organ Transplant Registry of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation: Twenty-fourth pediatric heart transplantation report — 2021; focus on recipient characteristics

Data collection, conventions, and statistical methods

The 2021 International Thoracic Organ Transplant Registry report, as in past years, was developed using data submitted to the Registry from national and multinational transplant collectives as well as individual transplant centers. Between 2010 and 2018, 210 centers performing heart transplants in pediatric recipients contributed data to the Registry.¹

This report presents an overview of characteristics of pediatric recipients of deceased donor heart alone transplants and their association with

Recipient characteristics

A comparison of baseline characteristics between pediatric recipients during the years 1992 to 2000, 2001 to 2009, and 2010 to 2018 is shown in Table 1 and eSlides H(p) 4 to 7. In each successive era, the number of pediatric heart transplant recipients increased in Europe, North America, and Other regions as heart transplantation became more widely available (eSlide H[p] 4-7). The proportion of pediatric heart transplants performed in North American centers has remained stable at ∼68%, while

One-year survival

Overall, 1-year post-transplant survival improved from 87% during 2000 to 2005 to 92% during 2012 to 2017 (eSlide H[p] 14). We examined the associations between recipient characteristics and 1-year survival during 2000 to 2017, focusing on how 1-year survival has changed in recipients stratified by specific characteristics. In all regions, overall 1-year survival among pediatric recipients was highest during 2012 to 2017 (Figure 2 and eSlide H[p] 15), however, the improvement did not reach