A stochastic model associated with paediatric heart transplantation

Abstract

A child judged to need cardiac transplantation must wait until a suitable donor heart becomes available. There are criteria that must be satisfied for suitable donor hearts, which depend on the tissue type and body mass of the recipient and potential donor. Depending on the clinical status of the recipient, so-called ‘bridging’ therapy may be given which involves admitting the child to an intensive care unit in an effort to ensure that they survive long enough for a suitable donor heart to become available. Such bridging is both distressing for the child and parents and is also very resource intensive. It is useful to have an estimate of how long the child must wait before a suitably matched donor heart becomes available and the probability of death while waiting. A stochastic model has been devised to derive such estimates informed by graphical considerations.

Keywords:

• stochastic
• transplantation
• Markov