Comment on “Design and Implementation of Cardiac Rehabilitation in Pediatric Heart Retransplantation: A Case Report”.

Better transplant patient outcomes are achieved not only due to the advanced pre-operative management, improvements in surgical techniques, sophisticated post-operative intensive cardiac care and more precise immunosuppression, but also because the early rehabilitation protocols have become a must part of the multidisciplinary care. The latter engages various assessment domains and corresponding interventions, with special focus on the most vulnerable systems, as it was with the respiratory, muscle and physical function after the ECMO decannulation in the re-transplantation case (1). Apparently, general evidence-based conclusions and pediatric cardiac transplantation rehabilitation guidelines will need to be outlined. Albeit, currently hospitals use internal protocols typically based on personal experience, center policies, adoptions of recommendations for adults and literature data. This is why sharing even case reports on this topic, especially with challenging scenarios, is valuable and requires utmost attention.

The results of the multidisciplinary approach conducted by the authors and their team cannot be underestimated. Their rehabilitation design and the success of its implementation will be especially useful to those centers who lack their own protocols for this fragile category of patients.