Operative volume and survival after lung transplantation: Yes, but…

As with other high-risk surgical procedures demonstrated to have a wide variance in perioperative survival among centers, there appears to be a relationship between operation volume and patient survival following lung transplantation. Two recent studies evaluated this relationship using the United Network for Organ Sharing transplant registry and are highlighted in this article. While increasing lung transplantation volume is associated with improved early and longer-term patient survival, the impact of this relationship may be no greater than other patient and donor risk factors, and may be a surrogate for other as yet unidentified center-specific processes of care.