Donor-recipient gender mismatch in lung transplantation: impact on obliterative bronchiolitis and survival.

BACKGROUND: Because of the shortage of donor lungs, liberalization of donor selection criteria in terms of age, gas exchange, and smoking history has been proposed. METHODS: We evaluated a single-institution population of lung transplant recipients (n = 98) for donor-recipient gender matching. We measured overall survival, time to acute allograft rejection, and time to development of obliterative bronchiolitis (OB). RESULTS: We found significant improvement in overall survival for gender-mismatched donor and recipient pairs (p = 0.078) and a significantly shorter OB-free period for male donor and female recipient pairs (p = 0.017). CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that donor organ allocation based on gender may affect long-term survival and other outcomes after lung transplantation.