[Heart and heart-lung transplantation in the child. Indications, methods and results].

Over a 20 month period, 19 children aged 13 days to 15 years (10 under 3 years), received a heart transplantation (isolated: 16 cases, heart-lungs: 3 cases). There were 5 early deaths and 2 during the 3rd postoperative month (total: 44%). Postoperative period is currently over for 8 of the 9 survivors, who lead a normal life, with rather simple constraints: oral cyclosporin-azathioprine immunosuppressive therapy, monthly evaluation in the out-patient department. The method is relatively simple when it concerns heart transplantation. It is quite heavier and complex when it concerns heart-lung transplantation. On the whole, subject to a rigorous selection of the transplant (whose later dysfunction was the major cause of failure, with bacterial or viral infections), these methods find reasonable indications in a number of heart and/or lung malformations or dysfunctions inaccessible to conventional treatments or which used up their resources, making short-term death likely.