Focus on Pneumonia After Organ Transplantation: Is There a Need for Specific Medical Care in the Emergency Department?

BACKGROUND: Pneumonia is a major cause of hospitalization and has a substantial impact on health care costs. Diagnosis and treatment of pneumonia in solid organ transplant (SOT) patients remain a challenge for clinicians in the emergency department. This study aimed to evaluate demographic features, clinical patterns, history of hospitalization, and diagnosis of adult patients after organ(s) transplantation (liver, kidney, pancreas) with severe pneumonia requiring hospitalization. The aim is to determine whether patients undergoing SOT receive or require specific care and whether they need to be prioritized. METHOD: This was a single-center observational study of adult patients after SOT with severe pneumonia requiring hospitalization. The data set for the analysis included only patients with pneumonia as the main reason for hospitalization. The diagnosis of pneumonia was suspected based on the American Thoracic Society criteria. RESULTS: The study revealed that the standard of care for patients with a history of SOT did not significantly differ from care provided to the non-SOT patients with pneumonia admitted to the same hospital during a 94-week period. CONCLUSION: There were notable differences, such as post-transplant patients being transferred more quickly to the hospital ward, having longer hospital stays, and receiving antibiotics earlier than the non-SOT group.

Organ Procurement From Foreigners Who Died in Poland and Organ Transplantation to Foreigners.

The aim of the work was to present data concerning organ donation from and transplantation to foreigners in Poland. Data came from registries maintained by the Polish Transplant Coordinating Center POLTRANSPLANT, consisting of the national waiting list, deceased donor registry, transplant registry, and live donor registry. In Poland, the rules for organ and tissue procurement for transplantation from foreigners who died in Poland and the rules for transplanting organs to foreigners are adopted and applied. Before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, "cross-border" cases of donations and transplants were rather sporadic. After the outbreak of the war, due to the mass influx of Ukrainian citizens, the situation changed, and the participation of foreigners (mostly Ukrainians) in transplantation procedures increased significantly and, in 2022, accounted for the total number of events: approximately 4% in the case of donation, slightly over 1% in the case of qualifications for transplantation and almost 2% in the number of transplantations performed. Despite this increase, the number of events is not high or critical and does not affect the efficiency of organ transplantation medicine in Poland.

Demand for Continuous and Long-Term Care in Transplant Recipients: Data From the Organ Transplantation Registry-Poltransplant Activity.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to determine the number of recipients with active transplants under the care of transplant centers in 2022 and the current volume and needs for continuous and long-term care in this group of transplant recipients. Data came from the organ transplant registry, one of the registries maintained by the Polish Transplant Coordinating Center Poltransplant. We included recipients of individual organs who, on January 1, 2022, were living with an active transplant performed in previous years and recipients who received a transplant in 2022. The number of recipients under the care of transplant centers in 2022 was 20,994 (55% of all transplants performed in Poland since the beginning of activity in 1966).

Current Data on Organ Donation and Transplantation in Poland: Poltransplant Activity 2017 to 2022.

BACKGROUND: In this paper, we present organ donation and transplantation activities in Poland from 2017 to 2022. Data came from registries maintained by the Polish Transplant Coordinating Center Poltransplant and consisted of the national waiting list, deceased donor registry, transplant registry, and the live donor registry. Poltransplant is the Competent Authority in Organs, with tasks related to preparing assessments, analyses, information, and reports in transplantation medicine and publishing and disseminating these results in the country and abroad. Poltransplant edits the Poltransplant Bulletin on its web pages and presents its activities at Polish Transplantation Society congresses, published consecutively as professional papers.