Abstract

Background: Mood disorders are considered as a common and troublesome
complication after heart transplantation. However, there is no agreement as to reasons for their higher incidence risk and prophylaxis methods. To date, various studies have yielded contradictory results.
Material/Methods: 49 heart transplant recipients have been evaluated during the first 16 weeks after OHT. Using the ICD-10 criteria, the incidence of mood disorders and 17 demographic and medical factors potentially influencing the probability of a depressive and hypomanic syndrome were studied.
Results: 3 manic or hypomanic episodes, 12 cases of mild mood elevation and 27 depression episodes have been observed. No correlation has been revealed between the occurrence of the episode of a hypomanic syndrome and each of the studied factors. We found that the risk of a depression syndrome is higher in patients, who experienced a greater number of "false alarms" (the number of requests to arrive to the medical centre not finished with transplantation), and in patients with longer hospitalization period. Analysing moderate depressive episodes we proved that their occurrence probability is also higher as a result of underlying diseases and lower mean cyclosporine level.
Conclusions: Depression episodes are a frequent phenomenon during early post-OHT rehabilitation. "False alarms", older age, long-lasting hospitalizations and low cyclosporine level increase the risk of post-OHT depression. Manic episodes occur sporadically after OHT.

Keywords: Heart Transplantation