Lung transplantation in children and young adults: a 20-year single-centre experience

Lung transplantation in adults is an accepted therapeutic option, whereas there is ongoing debate on its positive impact on survival in children. We report our experience of the first 20 yrs of paediatric lung transplantation at a single centre in Austria. Patient survival, organ survival and freedom from bronchiolitis obliterans were estimated by Kaplan-Meier curves. Pre- and post-transplant parameters were assessed and their influence on patient and organ survival evaluated by univariate tests and stepwise multivariate analyses. A total of 55 transplantations were performed in 43 patients. 1- and 5-yr patient survival rates were 72.1% and 60.6%, respectively, and 52.6% of patients were found to be free from bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome at 5 yrs post-transplant. Analysing different eras of transplantation suggests an improvement over the years with a 5-yr survival rate of 70.6% in the second decade. A positive effect of pre-transplant diabetes mellitus and immunosuppression was found with the newer drug tacrolimus, and a negative effect of pre-transplant in-hospital admission was reported. A high rate of successful re-transplantation prolonged total patient survival.