Double lung transplantation in patients with metastatic lung-limited non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC): A case series.
Authors: Chae Young Kwang , Demir Tarik , Chung Liam IL Young , Woo Wongi , Moloney Carolyn , Jung Chan Mi , Tomic Rade , Bharat Ankit 
Published: June 2024

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Background: Despite technological advances and expanded indications in lung transplantation, lung cancer constituted less than 0.1% of the lung transplantation over the past two decades. Double lung transplantation (DLT) may offer curative treatment for metastatic lung-limited NSCLC patients without extrapulmonary disease. We present a case series of consecutive NSCLC patients who underwent DLT. Methods: Patients treated with DLT were identified between 09/2021 and 02/2024 at Canning Thoracic Institute of Northwestern University. All patients had enrolled in the DLT registry aimed for lung-limited malignancies (DREAM) study cohort A (NCT05671887). Exclusion criteria includes presence of extrapulmonary disease. Results: Six patients with stage IVA NSCLC who underwent lung transplantation were included. Five (83.3%) patients underwent double lung, and one (16.7%) patient single lung transplantation. Four (66.7%) patients had invasive mucinous, and two (33.3%) had invasive non-mucinous adenocarcinoma histology. One of the two invasive non-mucinous patients had acinar, and the other had mixed lepidic, papillary, and acinar histology. Patients were aged 56-71; one (16.7%) was Asian, five (83.3%) were White, four (66.7%) were male, and three (50%) had a history of smoking. One (16.7%) patient had a past medical history of interstitial lung disease (ILD) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The median pretransplant treatment lines were 2 (1-5). All patients had high oxygen requirements before DLT due to cancer progression. Pre-transplant endobronchial ultrasound and evaluation of bilateral pneumonectomy lungs found no lymph node involvement (pN0). One patient had an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutated cancer but had failed relevant targeted therapy prior to transplant. All patients had disease progression on standard of care treatments with/without clinical trials. The indication for DLT was respiratory failure or refractory cancer for all patients. After DLT, one patient had a recurrence of the disease at 18 months with a 1cm solid nodule and was treated with stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). Both original and recurrent tumors had invasive mucinous adenocarcinoma histology, negative PD-L1 expression, and the same JAK3 c.2174C > T, P725L mutated clone. It suggests that the recurrence likely arose from the original cancer. Transplant rejection did not occur in any of the cases. Following the transplant, there was no requirement for oxygen therapy for any patient. All patients are alive with 28, 18, 8, 8, 5, and 4-month posttransplant follow-up. Conclusions: Six patients underwent DLT successfully without significant complications. All patients were alive and in good health. Ongoing DREAM study will continue to investigate the role of DLT in metastatic lung-limited NSCLC patients (especially in pN0). Clinical trial information: NCT05671887 .