Bakhtiyar SS, Godfrey EL, Ahmed S, et al. - Researchers sought to report on the current status of survival of patients on the heart transplantation waiting list. In addition, they investigated the association of ventricular assist devices (VADs) and the 2006 UNOS allocation policy with survival. Using the UNOS database, They performed a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of 95,323 candidates wait-listed for heart transplantation between January 1, 1987, and December 29, 2017. In the setting of changes in listing preferences,increase in 1-year survival on the waiting list was noted from 34.1% in 1987-1990 to 67.8% in 2011-2017. For candidates with VADs, the 1-year waiting list survival raised from 10.2% in 1996-2000 to 70.0% in 2011-2017. Similarly, in the setting of changing mechanical circulatory support indications, increase in the 1-year waiting list survival for patients without VADs occurred from 53.9% in 1996-2000 to 66.5% in 2011-2017. In adjusted analysis, a marked decrease in waiting list mortality was observed in each time period after 1987-1990. Findings thereby suggest temporally correlated increases in heart transplant waiting list survival for all patient groups (with or without VADs, UNOS status 1 and status 2 candidates, and candidates with poor functional status).