Patients with damaged kidneys can resort to dialysis. With better immunosupressive therapies and organ preservation techniques, criteria for donor lungs are less stringent than before. Still according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, only 15 percent of organ donors are eligible to donate lungs. Infection or edema of the lungs, a consequence of many patients who suffer traumatic injuries, makes the lungs useless for transplants, Dr. Conte explains. Yet the waiting time for lungs in Maryland is far better than other states.
Patients wait about six months for a lung here compared to two years elsewhere.
As the numbers of heart and lung transplant recipients have increased, surgeons have found that viral infections of the respiratory tract play an important role in morbidity and mortality, especially cytomegalovirus. A British study showed age, sex and preoperative diagnosis had little to do with mortality but a positive cytomegalovirus antibody of the donor or recipient significantly increased the risk of death within the first 24 hours after the operation. According to Dr. Conte, prophylaxis with ganciclovir is effective in preventing serious CMV infections but better strategies are still needed to prevent these infections. Heart transplants alone are drastically different, Dr. Conte explains. By making the heart smaller, it works more efficiently, he adds.