Current opinion in organ transplantation
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The number of patients listed for lung transplantation largely exceeds the number of available transplantable organs because of both a shortage of organ donors and a low utilization rate of lungs from those donors due to injuries acquired during the process of brain death and intensive care unit (ICU) care. A novel strategy for donor lung preservation - ex-vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) - that keeps the organ at physiological protective conditions has shown great promise to increase lung utilization by reassessing, treating, and repairing injured donor lungs prior to transplantation. ⋯ EVLP triggers a new era in lung transplantation. This method will allow for more and better organs to become available. Several experimental studies, clinical case reports, and a clinical trial have shown the safety of EVLP and the numerous potentials of EVLP.
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Bridging to lung transplantation remains a controversy. Individually, it may be a life-saving therapy to use ventilation and extracorporeal means for gas exchange to keep a patient alive until lung transplantation. Collectively, this may lead to a selection of patients with the worst outcome. New technologies have become available to minimize the adverse events of extracorporeal devices. This may have an impact on the indication and use of such devices and also on the outcome. ⋯ Bridging to lung transplantation changes to concepts avoiding the sequels mechanical ventilation and thereby offers improvement of lung recipients prior to the transplant procedure.