After heart transplant, a life-threatening condition, acute allograft rejection, is one of the major contributors that heighten the recipient’s risk of death. To assess for early signs of acute allograft rejection, heart transplant recipients routinely undergo endomyocardial biopsies during the year following the heart transplant procedure. Endomyocardial biopsy is an invasive procedure that is associated with significant risks to heart transplant recipients. Given the clinical importance of detection of early acute allograft rejection and a patient’s responsiveness to immunosuppressive therapy, endomyocardial biopsies are currently the gold standard in the surveillance for acute allograft rejection.

New evidence, however, highlights the promise of an electrocardiographic biomarker for detecting acute allograft rejection and reducing a patient’s need for endomyocardial biopsy. Specifically, recent research indicates that donor hearts with a prolonged corrected QT interval and QT/QTc ratio on an electrocardiogram (ECG) are likely underlying mechanisms in the development of acute allograft rejection and its...

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