OBJECTIVE: To describe the rate of infections presented by patients submitted to heart transplant during the first thirty days after surgery, in respect to the topography and etiological agent and to compare the rate of infection during the immediately postoperative period with the preventive measures adopted by infection control. METHODS: A retrospective study was made of a population consisting of 125 patients submitted to heart transplant from June 1984 to January 2004. Data were collected by analyzing the patients' records following a specific investigative sequence. The ages of the patients ranged from 9 days to 71 years old, with a median of 47 years. There was a predominance of men (75.2%). RESULTS: During the first thirty postoperative days, 32.8% of the patients presented with infections. There were predominantly bacterial infections (32%), followed by fungal infections (5.6%) and those caused by viruses (4%). No difference was observed in the rate of infection comparing two situations: (1) in nursing care of patients using protective isolation (29.9%); and (2) without protective isolation (36.2%) ( p = 0.835). CONCLUSION: Bacterial infections predominated followed by fungal and viral infections. The protective isolation initially used in post-heart transplant patients proved unnecessary as a measure to prevent or reduce rates of infection, confirming data obtained mainly in North American studies. These data are useful to guide protocols as they take specificities of our environment into account.
Heart transplantation; Infection control
