Special issues in the management and selection of the donor for lung transplantation

Abstract

Lung transplantation is a viable treatment option for select patients with end-stage lung disease. Two issues hamper progress in transplantation: first, donor shortage is a major limitation to increasing the number of transplants performed. Secondly, recipient outcomes remain disappointing when compared with other solid organ transplant results. Outcomes are limited by primary graft dysfunction (PGD), the posttransplant acute lung injury that increases both short-and long-term mortality. Attempts to overcome donor shortage have included aggressively managing solid organ donors to increase the number of donor lungs suitable for transplantation. Yet, the quality of the lung donor is likely to be related to the probability of the recipient experiencing PGD. PGD is the culmination of a series of insults, hemodynamic, metabolic, and inflammatory, that begin with the brain dead donor and result in poor recipient outcomes. Understanding the mechanism of donor lung injury resulting from brain death and the possible treatment strategies for its inhibition could help to increase the number of usable lungs and decrease the rate of PGD in the recipient. Here we present a review of the key pathways which result in donor lung injury, and follow this with a brief review of recent biomarkers that are proving to be instrumental to our ability to predict truly unsuitable lungs, and our ability to predict and hopefully prevent or treat recipients with subsequent lung injury.