The Year in Cardiothoracic Transplant Anesthesia: Selected Highlights From 2022 Part II: Cardiac Transplantation

These highlights focus on research published in the year 2022 and is divided into preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative sections. The preoperative section includes research on the assessment and optimization of candidates for heart transplantation; donor optimization and the use of extended donors; organ protection systems; donation after circulatory death allografts; recipient factors including cannabis use, sex, race, and comorbidities such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, and peripartum cardiomyopathy; the effects of the 2018 heart allocation policy change on waitlist and postoperative mortality; updates on heart transplantation in patients with coronavirus disease 2019; in pediatric patients; and those who require a bridge to transplant. The intraoperative section includes the use of a multidisciplinary team, a proposed transfusion algorithm, bench surgery on the allograft, and size matching. The postoperative section focuses on the research on the development and management of tricuspid regurgitation, echocardiography, arrhythmia management, and, finally, xenotransplantation.