M.D. New technology continues to search for new applications to improve human life. Organs of the body can be transplanted from one patient to another. Yet, when to perform such transplants and evolution of data are crucial to the outcome of innovative approaches in medicine. Transplants here mean someone else's lung is placed into the patient's chest to replace the cancerous one. A new analysis just published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine by Garver et al, evaluated patients with bronchoalveolar carcinoma treated with lung transplantation.
Bronchoalveolar carcinoma is a relatively rare form of adenocarcinoma.
Adenocarcinoma is one of the most common cancers afflicting the lungs. The bronchoalveolar cancer lines the alveolar walls. The alveolar walls are those that are responsible for interacting between air and blood so that oxygen can transfer into body. There is felt to be an increasing incidence of bronchoalveolar carcinoma. Fortunately, patients in general with bronchoalveolar carcinoma live longer than those with the more common adenocarcinomas.