Impact of Chlamydia pneumoniae infection on survival rate after heart transplantation

Summary Background: As Chlamydia pneumoniae (Cp), a common cause of respiratory infection, is of vasotropic charac-ter, chronic infection may be associated with the development of coronary disease, althoughthere have been few reports on the impact of Cp infection on the post-orthotopic heart trans-plantation (OHT) survival rate. Material/Methods: A total of 41 patients (4 females) were followed up for one year after OHT. Serology investiga-tions for IgM, IgG and IgA antibodies against Cp were performed using the enzymeimmunoassay (EIA) method. Univariate and multivariate analyses were carried out withrespect to IgA, IgG, gender and type of cardiomyopathy. The IgA-IgG joint effect was alsostudied. Results: The one-year survival rate was reported for patients with IgA < 8 EIU to be 72.2%, whereasthose with IgA ≥ 8 EIU accounted for only 43.5% (Kaplan-Meier analysis, p = 0.0548). Inmultivariate analysis IgA /IgG status proved to be a highly significant factor in survival. IgApositive outcome combined with IgG negative outcome showed that the relative risk of deathequaled 12.08 versus other combinations of IgA/IgG status. In the Cox multivariate modelischemic cardiomyopathy showed a relative risk of 2.79 (p=0.0594), although it was not signif-icant in univariate analysis.