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Lung Transplantation Can Extend Lives, Research Shows LONDON, UK -- November 5 1999 -- Lung transplantation has been available as therapy for end-stage lung disease since the early 1980s, but survival after transplantation remains poor and there is a great deal of controversy as to survival benefit. Early mortality is high from overwhelming infection and acute rejection of the transplant, and current international survival figures for lung transplantation are about 70 percent at one year and 45 percent at four years. In The Lancet this week, Dr. P. Aurora and colleagues from Great Ormond Street Hospital, UK, examined the effect of lung or heart-lung transplantation on the survival of 124 children with cystic fibrosis and severe lung disease. Children were accepted for transplantation if they had a life expectancy of two years or less, a poor quality of life, and no contraindications to transplantation. Forty-seven children received transplants, 68 died while they awaited organs and nine remained on the active waiting list. Of the 47 children receiving transplants, 42 received heart-lung transplants, four received bilateral lung transplants, and one received a single lung transplant. The average waiting time for organs was 0.56 years. One year after transplantation, 35 (74 percent) children were still alive. Transplantation remained significantly associated with survival after correction for differences in age, sex, height, and other factors. The investigators state "Our results are consistent with the three previously published studies, and this is an encouraging finding...If centres follow our criteria for accepting patients for transplantation...they could expect a survival benefit for their patients in line with our results." The researchers stress that unless survival without transplantation improves dramatically, transplantation should remain a therapeutic option for cystic fibrosis patients with end-stage lung disease. These results confirm the shortage of donor organs in the UK; fewer than half of the children accepted for transplantation during the study period received organs. E-mail this page to a friend or colleague! To print, use this version