Graft Rejection

Transplant patients are at risk of graft rejection. This can either be hyperacute (within hours), acute (weeks to months) or chronic (months to years). Acute rejection is further divided into cellular or humoral:

• Acute cellular rejection is T cell mediated. It is mostly diagnosed on surveillance endomyocardial biopsy in patients who are asymptomatic
• Acute humoral rejection is antibody mediated and is characterised by a high incidence of haemodynamic compromise, graft loss and death