One and one-half year experience with unilateral and bilateral lung transplantation

Lung transplantation has now become an established form of treatment for end-stage pulmonary parenchymal and vascular diseases. Despite its wide acceptance, technical aspects are still in discussion. We report on the initiation of our own lung transplant program and the technical changes we have performed during our first 1 1/2-year experience. During that period of time, we have performed 26 lung transplantations (16 single lung [SLTX] and 10 bilateral lung transplantations [BLTX]). Three-month survival for the whole group was 74% (69% for the SLTX group and 77% for the BLTX group). No instance of bronchial dehiscence was observed; however, there were eight cases of bronchial stenosis: six were managed by silicone stent insertion, one by bronchoplastic correction, and one by retransplantation. Changes in the technique of the bronchial anastomosis together with the addition of prednisone to the immediate postoperative immunosuppressive regime resulted in almost complete avoidance of these problems.