Every surgical procedure used in medicine today has some risks and complications associated with it. It is therefore fairly obvious that a procedure as complicated as a heart transplant procedure would carry some risk of complications. There could be post heart transplant complications as also complications that could arise during the procedure. A heart transplant procedure is used when the patient has suffered from serious heart failure. Severe heart failure occurs as a result of some injury or some disease or medical condition. In some cases, severe heart failure may occur as a result of genetic issues. This type of heart failure is associated with infants and children.

A heart transplant procedure may be complete or partial depending on whether the patient’s heart is being replaced or if assistance is being provided to it to recover from the damage that has taken place.

The most common heart transplant complications from surgery include organ rejection and donor heart failure. Rejection occurs when the immune system of the recipient attacks the received organ because it believes that this organ is a foreign object that needs to be neutralized. Normally, this is a good thing as it ensures that the body is protected from foreign objects and substances. However, when it comes to receiving an organ, the activities of the immune system will lead to catastrophic problems. Most patients are therefore given immunosuppressant medication to ensure that heart transplant complications related to the immune system are avoided. It should be noted that the patient’s body will initially adjust to the new heart that it has received. Doctors need to therefore be particularly careful to ensure that they do not prescribe immunosuppressant medication before there is clear evidence that the organ is being rejected. This fine balance adds to the risk of a heart transplant procedure.

Another of the complications after heart transplant is that of the donor heart failing. This is a strong possibility, especially if the patient’s underlying condition has not been cured. If the patient continues to suffer from the problem that originally caused heart failure, then he or she is likely to experience repeated heart failure.

Infection is one of the avoidable heart transplant complications. Infection occurs if proper steps are not taken to make the operating environment sterile and clean. Another aspect of infection based heart transplant complications is related to immunosuppressant medication. If the patient’s immune system is excessively suppressed, then he or she may suffer from an infection because the body is unable to deal with the infections that are present in the atmosphere. One should remember that the heart transplant complications and age are related and the complications increase as the person grows older. Thus an elderly person is more at risk that someone who is younger.