Same-sex heart transplants work better

NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers said matching heart transplant patients to donors of the same gender results in better long-term survival.

The study, presented Wednesday at an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans, said heart size and possible differences in the immune system may be factors for the gender matching success.

"Heart size would seem to be the most obvious factor; beyond that, no one knows why sex matching is important to transplant survival," lead author Dr. Eric Weiss of The Johns Hopkins University Medical Institutions said in a statement. "In clinical transplantation, we generally don't assume that organs from male and female donors have inherent differences affecting long-term outcomes, but our data suggest that there are important differences which must be taken into account."

The findings are based on data on more than 18,000 heart transplant patients identified through the United Network of Organ Sharing. The report said matching donor and recipient by gender resulted in a 13 percent lower risk of graft rejection within the first year, a 25 percent drop in 30-day death rate and a 20 percent lower one-year death rate.