Postpneumonectomy syndrome in single lung transplantation recipient following previous pneumonectomy

Successful single lung transplantation following previous pneumonectomy has not been reported in the literature. We report a patient with cystic fibrosis who underwent left single lung transplantation following right pneumonectomy 13 years previously. The outcome was adversely affected by postpneumonectomy syndrome.     

Clinical intestinal transplantation: a decade of experience at a single center

OBJECTIVE: To assess the long-term efficacy of intestinal transplantation under tacrolimus-based immunosuppression and the therapeutic benefit of newly developed adjunct immunosuppressants and management strategies. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: With the advent of tacrolimus in 1990, transplantation of the intestine began to emerge as therapy for intestinal failure. However, a high risk of rejection, with the consequent need for acute and chronic high-dose immunosuppression, has inhibited its widespread application. METHODS: During an 11-year period, divided into two segments by a 1-year moratorium in 1994, 155 patients received 165 intestinal allografts under immunosuppression based on tacrolimus and prednisone: 65 intestine alone, 75 liver and intestine, and 25 multivisceral. For the transplantations since the moratorium (n = 99), an adjunct immunosuppressant (cyclophosphamide or daclizumab) was used for 74 transplantations, adjunct donor bone marrow was given in 39, and the intestine of 11 allografts was irradiated with a single dose of 750 cGy. RESULTS: The actuarial survival rate for the total population was 75% at 1 year, 54% at 5 years, and 42% at 10 years. Recipients of liver plus intestine had the best long-term prognosis and the lowest risk of graft loss from rejection (P =.001). Since 1994, survival rates have improved. Techniques for early detection of Epstein-Barr and cytomegaloviral infections, bone marrow augmentation, the adjunct use of the interleukin-2 antagonist daclizumab, and most recently allograft irradiation may have contributed to the better results. CONCLUSION: The survival rates after intestinal transplantation have cumulatively improved during the past decade. With the management strategies currently under evaluation, intestinal transplant procedures have the potential to become the standard of care for patients with end-stage intestinal failure.     

Cadaveric kidney transplantation: five years experience at a single center

BACKGROUND: In the past, the majority of renal transplantations in Iran were from living donors, but recently cadaveric donation of organs is increasing. We reviewed our experience on kidney transplantation from cadaveric donors for the past 5 years in our center. METHODS: Between July 1998 and September 2004, 122 kidneys were removed from 61 cases of brain-dead patients and transplanted in 114 patients with end-stage renal disease in our center. Two kidneys had tumoral involvement and were discarded. Three kidneys were transplanted in other centers and three patients received en bloc kidney transplantations. In addition, we performed nine cases of heart, one case of liver, and one case of lung transplantations. All the recipients were followed for at least 1 year and posttreatment renal function and graft survival were determined. RESULTS: All cadaveric donors were brain dead due to car (30%) and motocycle (70%) accidents, with ages ranging from 5 to 56 years (mean, 24/4 years). The mean warm and total cold ischemia times were 7 minutes and 8.1 hours, respectively. The mean distance between harvesting center and our hospital was 65 km. The 1-year graft survival was 92.3%, with mean serum creatinine of 1.76 +/- 0.79 at 1 year. Of other transplanted organs, the liver and lung recipients died 24 hours and 45 days after operation. Among heart recipients, four are still alive. CONCLUSION: Cadaveric donors in developing countries including Iran can be excellent sources of organ donation.     

A decade of living lobar lung transplantation: recipient outcomes

OBJECTIVE: Living lobar lung transplantation was developed as a procedure for patients considered too ill to await cadaveric transplantation. METHODS: One hundred twenty-eight living lobar lung transplantations were performed in 123 patients between 1993 and 2003. Eighty-four patients were adults (age, 27 +/- 7.7 years), and 39 were pediatric patients (age, 13.9 +/- 2.9 years). RESULTS: The primary indication for transplantation was cystic fibrosis (84%). At the time of transplantation, 67.5% of patients were hospitalized, and 17.9% were intubated. One-, 3-, and 5-year actuarial survival among living lobar recipients was 70%, 54%, and 45%, respectively. There was no difference in actuarial survival between adult and pediatric living lobar recipients (P =.65). There were 63 deaths among living lobar recipients, with infection being the predominant cause (53.4%), followed by obliterative bronchiolitis (12.7%) and primary graft dysfunction (7.9%). The overall incidence of acute rejection was 0.8 episodes per patient. Seventy-eight percent of rejection episodes were unilateral. Age, sex, indication, donor relationship, preoperative hospitalization status, use of preoperative steroids, and HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-DR typing did not influence survival. However, patients on ventilators preoperatively had significantly worse outcomes (odds ratio, 3.06, P =.03; Kaplan-Meier P =.002), and those undergoing retransplantation had an increased risk of death (odds ratio, 2.50). CONCLUSION: These results support the continued use of living lobar lung transplantation in patients deemed unable to await a cadaveric transplantation. We consider patients undergoing retransplantations and intubated patients to be at significantly high risk because of the poor outcomes in these populations.     

肺移植治疗终末期肺疾病的单中心十年经验总结

目的 探讨肺移植治疗终末期肺疾病的效果,并对单中心肺移植的经验进行总结.方法 回顾2003年1月至2012年12月间52例肺移植病例的临床资料,受者年龄为24～76岁,≥65岁者13例;受者原发病主要为肺气肿33例(63.5％)及特发性肺间质纤维化8例(15.4％).术后对所有受者的并发症发生率、死亡情况及存活率进行分析.结果 供肺缺血时间＞6 h者28例(53.8％),其中缺血超过10 h者20例(38.5％).术后出现吻合口狭窄3例(5.8％),住院期间发生细菌感染14例(26.9％),真菌感染13例(25.0％),巨细胞病毒性肺炎1例(1.9％).发生急性排斥反应20例(38.5％),经甲泼尼龙冲击治疗3d后均逆转;发生慢性排斥反应7例(13.5％),其中2例接受再次肺移植后效果良好,3例调整免疫抑制方案后缓解,2例死亡.术后1年内死亡9例(17.3％),术后1、3和5年的总体累积存活率分别为81.4％,54.5％和30.9％.结论 肺移植是治疗终末期肺疾病的有效方法,恰当的病例选择、良好的肺保护、正确的围手术期处理及系统的术后管理是肺移植成功的关键.     

Clinical experience of more than 200 cases of pediatric liver transplantation at a single center: improved patient survival

The aim of this study was to present our experience with more than 200 cases of orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) at a single center. We conducted a retrospective, single-center assessment of the demographic and clinical factors in children who underwent OLT from 1994 to 2010. Two hundred children younger than 18 years of age underwent 200 primary and 9 liver re-transplantations. The overall patient survival rates before 2003 at 1, 5, and 10 years were 86.4%, 79.5%, and 78.4%, respectively; whereas after 2003 they were 95.4% and 95.4% at 1 and 5 years, respectively (P < .05). Our center's results showed durable, improved outcomes in recent years.     

影响肝移植术后生存率因素的单中心研究分析

目的 探讨目前影响肝移植术后患者生存率的原因。方法 回顾性分析解放军总医院2007年1月-2010年12月232例肝移植患者的临床资料,并对随访过程中死亡患者的资料进行分析.结果 肝移植患者的1年生存率已达73.6％,2年生存率为69.6％,其中原发病是良性疾病的患者长期生存率要高于恶性肿瘤患者。肿瘤复发已成为导致患者死亡的首要因素,达35.8％,术后出血占第2位,达到24.7％。结论 肿瘤复发以及术后出血是影响肝移植术后生存率的重要因素。     

Redo lung transplantation for acute and chronic lung allograft failure: long-term follow-up in a single center

Objective: This study was undertaken to evaluate outcomes of redo lung transplantation (LT) for acute and chronic graft failure. Methods: Between 1988 and 2007, 388 LT procedures were performed on 369 patients. From those, 17 (4.6%) patients had redo LT once and 2 patients had redo LT twice. Patient survival and recurrence of bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) after redo LT were reviewed. Results: The overall survival rates of the 17 redo LT recipients at 1, 2 and 5 years were 59 ± 23%, 59 ± 23% and 42 ± 25%, respectively. For the chronic graft failure group (n = 12), survival rates at 1, 2 and 5 years were 67 ± 26%, 67 ± 26% and 44 ± 30%, respectively. These survival rates were significantly lower than the survival rates observed in our experience after primary LT (n = 352, 1-, 2- and 5-year survival rates of 88 ± 4%, 80 ± 4% and 65 ± 5%, respectively. For the acute graft failure group (n = 5), the 1-year survival rate was 40%; two patients remain free from BOS. Two patients had a second redo LT, one died from multi-organ failure on postoperative day 86 and the other died from pulmonary aspergillosis on postoperative day 214. Conclusions: Redo LT is a valid therapeutic option for selected patients with BOS and might be an option for highly selected patients with acute lung graft failure. Outcomes from a second redo LT are poor, and a second lung retransplantation must be used very cautiously, if at all.     

Pediatric liver transplantation for hepatoblastoma: a single center experience

The objective of this study was to review our experience with liver transplantation (OLT) for hepatoblastoma (HB) patients. We evaluated retrospectively clinical features of seven pediatric patients with HB who underwent OLT at our institute from 2007 to February 2011. We investigated pretreatment extent of disease (PRETEXT) stage at diagnosis, type of procedure, complications, changes in serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) level, recurrences and metastases. The median age at surgery was 47 months (range, 11 months to 10.3 years). OLT was performed for PRETEXT stage III with a central location (n = 2) and for PRETEXT stage IV cases (n = 5). Five children underwent live donor OLT (LDLT) and two deceased donor OLT including one split deceased donor OLT. One patient received a hepatic vein stent insertion due to stenosis and another experienced biliary leakage which was treated with percutaneous drainage and conservative management. Postoperative serum AFP level remained below 20 ng/mL during follow-up period in six patients who were free of recurrences or metastases. Postoperative serum AFP levels in one patient with pulmonary metastasis were never below 20 ng/mL and increased gradually thereafter. A Pulmonary metastasis was discovered in the 2^nd month post-operative. The other 6 patients are free of tumor recurrences with 29.9 month median follow-up.Although the number of cases is small without long term follow-up data, OLT for unresectable HB confined to the liver following chemotherapy seemed to show good clinical results. The role of post transplantation serum AFP levels needs further investigation.     

Orthotopic heart transplantation in elderly patients: a 10-year experience at a single center

INTRODUCTION: A consensus has not yet been reached regarding the indications for orthotopic heart transplantation (OHT) in elderly patients or the age limit contraindicating the procedure. The objective of this study was to assess OHT outcomes to determine whether elderly patients benefit from the procedure. METHODS: From February 1993 to February 2003, 178 OHTs were performed on recipients of mean age 47.4 +/- 15 years (range, 4 to 74) including 80.3% men. The population was divided into two groups: group A included patients >/= 60 years, and group B those younger than that age. Survival was analyzed for the overall population and for both age groups during a 10-year follow-up period. RESULTS: Group A included 36 patients (20.8%) and group B 142 patients (79.2%). Mean age was 63.7 +/- 2.9 years (60 to 74) in A, and 43 +/- 13.9 years (4 to 59) in B. In-hospital mortality was significantly higher among group A (n = 11, 31.4%) compared to B (n = 17, 12.1%, P =.008). Survival at 1, 5, and 10 years was 61.5% +/- 8%, 58.1% +/- 8.3%, and 49.8% +/- 10.5% group A; and 84.2% +/- 3%, 73.7% +/- 4.1%, and 69.9% +/- 4.7 for group B. Elderly patients showed a lower survival rate (49.8%) compared with the younger group (69.9%) at 10-year follow-up (P =.007). Conditional survival at 9 years failed to show significant differences (A 72.2% vs B 79.6%, P =.4). CONCLUSION: In our population, elderly recipients showed a higher in-hospital mortality. However, when the first post-OHT year was excluded, we found similar survival rates for both age groups.     

Living unrelated donor renal transplantation: a single center experience

PURPOSE: Living, genetically unrelated donor renal transplantation (LURT) is being performed with increasing frequency. We evaluated our single center experience with LURT and compared this to a cohort of living related donor renal transplants (LRT) to evaluate the short-term success of LURT at our center. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We identified 99 consecutive patients who underwent LURT at our center and had at least 1 year of followup data. A control cohort of 99 patients who underwent LRT at our center matched for age, number of transplants and date of transplant was also identified. One-year graft and patient survival, and serum creatinine levels at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months were compared between the groups. Our data were compared with national and international data. RESULTS: At our center 1-year graft survival was 95% in the LURT and LRT cohorts. One-year LURT patient survival was 99% compared with 97% in the LRT group and the serum creatinine levels were not significantly different. CONCLUSIONS: Patients undergoing LURT at our center have excellent 1-year graft and patient survival compared with LRT performed at our center, and national and international LURT. Genetically unrelated kidney donors should continue to be used to expand the kidney donor pool.