PURPOSE--A prospective study of infective agents in diagnosed infections and deaths by specific agents in cardiac transplant patients. METHODS--Infections occurring in a series of 100 consecutive cardiac transplant patients after transplantation with definite infectious diagnosis were studied; follow-up after transplantation was 3 to 90 (medium 25.38 +/- 25.97) months. Diagnostic criteria for defining infections were those used in the Epidemiology and Quality Control Division of the INCOR, that are the same published by the Centers for Disease Control.

The following parameters were analysed:

infections/patient/time, causes of infection and organs infected, clinical presentation and clinical aspects of infections, methods used for the infective diagnosis and relationship between rejection episodes and infection. Death caused by infections and survival rates per infection were also studied. RESULTS--Bacterial infections were more frequent (56.3 of all infections), followed by viral infections (19.6), fungal infections (18) and protozoal infections (6.1). Of all deaths after transplantation, 25 were caused by infections. CONCLUSION--Infections are an important cause of mortality and morbidity in this patient population; our data are in accordance to the other reported series.