The Pathology of Cardiac Transplantation

Annalisa Angelini, MD, is Associate Professor in Pathological Anatomy at University of Padua Medical School, Padua, Italy and Chief of the Heart Transplant Unit at Azienda Ospedaliera-Università Padua. Dr. Angelini became a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology in 2004. She has served on a number of national and international committees, including as a Member of the Science Council, European Society of Cardiology (2004-6), Chair of the Working Group on Cardiovascular Morphology and Pathology, Association of European Paediatric Cardiologists (2007-present), and Chair of the ISHLT Council of Pathology and Basic Sciences (2009-10). She is a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and Cardiogenesis and has published almost 170 papers in peer-reviewed journals.Patrick Bruneval, MD, is Professor of Pathology, Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France, and Head of the Department of Pathology, Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Paris. Dr. Bruneval has served as President of the Association for European Cardiovascular Pathology (2010-2) and Chair of the Pathology Council of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (2012-3). His research activities in the Paris-Centre de Recherche Cardiovasculaire (INSERM U970) have focused on the pathology of cardiac rejection (especially antibody-mediated rejection), renal fibrosis/inflammation, and cardiac cell therapy, and he has published very extensively on these and other topics. Ornella Leone, MD, is Head of the Cardiovascular and Cardiac Transplant Pathology Unit at Sant’Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital, Bologna, Italy. From 2010 to 2013, Dr. Leone was President of the Italian Association for Cardiovascular Pathology. She has also served the Society of Cardiology as Coordinator of the Council of Directors for the Cardiovascular Anatomy and Pathology Group (2006-8) and Member of the Council of Directors of the Myocardial Disease Group (2012-4). Dr. Leone is a Founding Member of the Cardiovascular Anatomy and Pathology Group in the Italian Society of Cardiology and the Cardiovascular Pathology Group in the Italian Society of Pathology. She is a frequently invited speaker at national and international meetings and is the author of 93 journal articles, mostly in peer-reviewed journals. 

Introduction.- Cardiac transplantation and the contribution of pathology.- Prior to cardiac transplantation.- Advanced end-stage heart failure: epidemiology and management.- Mechanical circulatory support in end-stage heart failure: bridge to transplantation and destination therapy.- Clinical indications for heart transplantation.- Pathologies encountered in explanted native hearts.- Pre-transplant endomyocardial biopsy: when and why.- Heart donation and peritransplant pathologies.- Donor selection criteria: clinical and pathological insights.- Donor organ harvesting and preservation.- Perioperative damage to the graft.- Post-cardiac transplantation: the multiple faces of rejection.- Clinical management of transplant recipients.- Practical immunology for pathologists.- Pathology of acute cellular rejection.- Pathology of antibody mediated rejection.- Mixed rejection.- Pathological non rejection findings in the endomyocardial biopsy.- Non-invasive tools for monitoring allograft rejection: state of the art.- Cardiac allograft vasculopathy.- Post-cardiac transplantation: complications other than rejection.- Infections.- Tumours.- Chronic kidney disease after heart transplantation: risk factors, clinics and histopathology.- Special issues in cardiac transplantation.- Combined heart transplant.- The autopsy in heart transplantation.- Examining a heart with implantable mechanical circulatory support systems.