(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Patients who develop a central nervous system infection after having a heart transplant are at serious risk for death.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minn., collected data from 315 consecutive heart transplant recipients from 1988 through 2006. They studied clinical databases, medical records, laboratory records, and cranial imaging tests.

Within four years of transplant, eight patients had developed central nervous system infections. Of those eight, three patients died, and two survived with complications. In most of those patients, classic symptoms of a central nervous system infection we not present.
 

Researchers believe, although these infections aren’t terribly common after heart transplant surgery, the effects are bad enough to warrant thorough screening and rapid diagnosis. "Because the mortality and morbidity rates are so high, aggressive diagnosis and intervention are warranted in heart transplant recipients with suspected central nervous system infection," study authors write.

SOURCE: Archives of Neurology, 2007;64