Lung transplant

ABSTRACT

What is the future of lung transplantation in so far as its clinical application is concerned ? The actual surgery is not difficult but, as with all transplantations, the major problems occur post operatively. Our understanding of the immunologic response is still too superficial for us to be too optimistic about overcoming the rejection problem. In none of the human transplants discussed was rejection reported at autopsy. This is not really as encouraging a sign as it might appear, since human transplant centres report rejection only after eighteen days post operatively and none of the patients discussed above lived that long. But, many experimental units and research teams are now hard at work on the rejection problem, and at moment there could be a breakthrough, opening the way for lung transplantation as a form of therapy in chronic pulmonary disease. (Summary)