Abstract
Lung transplantation in adults is an accepted therapeutic option, whereas in children there is ongoing debate on its positive impact on survival. We report our experience of the first twenty years of paediatric lung transplantation at a single center in Austria.
Patient survival, organ survival and freedom from bronchiolitis obliterans were estimated by Kaplan Meier curves. Pre- and post-transplant parameters were assessed and their influence on patient and organ survival evaluated by univariate tests and stepwise multivariate analyses.
A total of 55 transplantations were performed in 43 patients. One and 5-year patient survival rates were 72.1% and 60.6%, freedom from bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome was found in 52.6% of patients at 5 years post-transplant. Analyzing different eras of transplantation suggests an improvement over the years with a 5-year survival of 70.6% in the second decade. A positive effect of pretransplant diabetes mellitus and immunosuppression with the newer drug tacrolimus, a negative effect of pre-transplant in-hospital admission was found. A high rate of successful re-transplantation prolonged total patient survival.
- ERS