Death after lung transplantation: improving long term survival despite perilous early postoperative years

Abstract

Many centers showed that since they started a lung transplantation program overall survival improved every 5 or 10 year cohort. This is also seen in combined international data (1). Many changes in donor selection, organ preservation and perioperative management improved short term survival despite usage of extended criteria donors. In parallel, also long term survival improved, likely due to gained experience and better anticipation on developing diseases after transplantation.