Heart Transplantation

Over the last year, I have received handoff reports on heart transplant patients. One of the things that I heard o few times during the handoff was: “the patient had an OHT open heart transplant”. Each time I heard this I would do a mini just-in-time education about the acronym “OHT”.

There are two types of heart transplantation: Orthotopic, and Heterotopic. The most common approach is the Orthotopic Heart Transplant.

Orthotopic Heart Transplant (OHT)

The recipient’s heart is replaced by the donor’s heart.

Heterotopic Heart Transplant (HHT)

The recipient’s heart is left in place and the donor’s heart is attached to the right side of the recipient’s heart. This approach is rare.

If you want to learn more about cardiac surgery this book Cardiac Surgery Essentials by Sonya R Harding and Roberta Kaplow is a great resource!

This was a brief post but I hope it provided value to you!