Abstract
The heart transplantation (HT) is undoubtedly the best treatment for
end-stage heart failure patients (2). However, the organ shortage
remains a major challenge in cardiac surgery. Facing this problem, the
medical community starts to extend the donor criteria to select more
suitable organs for HT. The use of ECDs is still controversial, since it
is associated with a high incidence of primary graft failure (3), and
although it guarantees longer survival than without transplantation,
there is still some hesitation in accepting this practice.