| Quality of life can be moderately
to substantially improved by lung transplantation, and life may
be extended beyond your life expectancy prior to transplantation.
It is impossible to predict how long you may survive after transplantation.
The most critical period for survival, of a patient and of the
donor
lung(s), is the first year after transplantation; this is the period
when surgical complications, rejection, and infection (see "Risks")
are the greatest threat to survival. Patients who survive the first
year are more likely to survive 3 years or longer after transplantation.
There are patients alive today who had lung transplantation 5 or
even more years ago.
Each lung transplant center
has survival statistics for its transplantation programs. These
statistics are available from the United
Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS)
Types of Transplant:
Single Lung or Double Lung
The transplant team's assessment of your medical needs and the availability
of donor lungs are considered in determining whether one or both
lungs should be transplanted.
Heart-Lungs
Both lungs and the heart are replaced when the heart has been chronically "overworked" and
weakened by long-term lung disease such as emphysema.
Risks:
Life expectancy after lung transplantation is shorter than for
heart, liver, or kidney transplantation, particularly for PPH
patients.
Rejection and infection are the two major complications of lung
transplantation. Immunosuppressive (antirejection) medications
prescribed
by your doctors will help keep the rejection process "turned off." Other
medications may be necessary to control and treat rejection if
your immune system breaks through the immunosuppressive blockade.
Following your doctors' orders and taking all medications as prescribed
help to prevent or control rejection.
Because you will be taking
immunosuppressive medications, your immune system will be less able
to fight off invading bacteria and viruses. You will be much more
susceptible to infection, and infections are more likely to become
severe.
Recent items from the PHCentral Newsroom:
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Infection, Rejection, And Hospitalizations In Transplant Recipients Using Telehealth
(RedOrbit ) -- Context-Telehealth technology serves individuals who live in geographical areas that prohibit easy access to specialized health care and can provide transplant recipients with access to transplant center personnel for adjunctive follow-up care. Objective-To compare infection, rejection, and hospitalization events in subjects randomized to telehealth or to standard posttransplant care.
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Two Orlando Hospitals Win OK For Transplants
(Orlando Sentinel ) -- The state gave approval Friday to the area's largest hospital chains -- Orlando Health and Florida Hospital -- to start the programs at their main facilities in town. Florida Hospital also was cleared to do lung transplants.
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State Plan To Pay For Organ Donors’ Funerals
(The West Australian ) -- The State Government would help cover the costs of organ donors’ funerals under a proposal promoted by Health Minister Jim McGinty and endorsed at an organ donation summit yesterday.
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Canada Has A New Organ, Tissue Donation Registry System
(Canada.com ) -- "With a more highly integrated system in Canada we can have a better collection and utilization of very important data that is needed and required in the organ donation and transplantation process."
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Organ Donation 'Helps Families To Heal'
(The Province ) -- Pia Henriksson of North Vancouver, whose son's organs saved five lives, supports a new B.C. study that shows 97 per cent of donor families are glad they gave.
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Dubuque Boy Undergoes Transplant
(RedOrbit ) -- The procedure was Nick's second transplant. A rare lung ailment called primary pulmonary hypertension led to his first transplant a decade ago. Doctors had hoped the first transplanted lungs would grow with Nick, but they were compromised by chronic rejection, and his condition gradually worsened.
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MPPs Reopen Organ-Donation Debate
(Toronto Star ) -- Ontario legislators, anxious to trim a growing list of people waiting for an organ, are trying to rekindle the lingering debate over whether everyone should be considered a would-be organ donor unless they explicitly indicate otherwise.
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Family Backs Call For Organ Donor Overhaul
(Gold Coast Mail ) -- Labor backbencher Karen Struthers, who is chairing the inquiry into organ donations, said the government was concerned Australia still had one of the developed world's lowest organ donation rates - up to three times lower than in European countries.
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Diane Hebert, The First Quebecer To Get Double-Lung And Heart Transplant, Dies
(The Canadian Press) -- In 1983, Diane Hebert's doctor told her she was likely to live only another two years because of primitive pulmonary hypertension, which plugs the arteries around the heart, deprives the body of oxygen and makes breathing increasingly difficult. A double-organ transplant was the only answer.
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Disclosure of Organ Transplant Risks: A Question of When, Not If
(Newswise) -- University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine physicians and bioethicists are calling for a new, more standardized way for patients in need of organ transplants to be informed of the risks they face. If adopted, their policy recommendations could promote greater equity in how organs are allocated while restricting patients' abilities to "cherry-pick" the best organs.
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Teen Awaits Life-Saving Phone Call
(Click 2 Houston.com) -- He was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension when he was 3 years old. His lungs don't function properly.
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All Of Us Have The Ability To Give The Ultimate Gift
(redOrbit) -- Addressing a conference in Edinburgh this week, Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon, who previously seemed quite enthusiastic about "presumed consent" for organ donation, appeared to back away from it. Instead, she opted to stress what she thought could be done to tackle the issue without changing the law, seemingly on the basis that the public isn't ready for such a change.
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Spotlight: New Lease On Life, Thanks To Donors
(The New Straits Times) -- Transplants at the National Heart Institute (IJN) in Malaysia.
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