Lung transplantation: candidate selection and timing of transplant

Over the past two decades, lung transplant has become the mainstay of treatment for several end-stage lung diseases. As the field continues to evolve, the criteria for referral and listing have also changed. The last update to these guidelines was in 2014 and several studies since then have changed how patients are transplanted. Our article aims to briefly discuss these updates in lung transplantation.

This article discusses the importance of early referral of patients for lung transplantation and the concept of the 'transplant window'. We review the referral and listing criteria for some common pulmonary diseases and also cite the updated literature surrounding the absolute and relative contraindications keeping in mind that they are a constantly moving target. Frailty and psychosocial barriers are difficult to assess with the current assessment tools but continue to impact posttransplant outcomes. Finally, we discuss the limited data on transplantation in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) due to COVID19 as well as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation bridge to transplantation.

The findings discussed in this article will strongly impact, if not already, how we select candidates for lung transplantation. It also addresses some aspects of lung transplant such as frailty and ARDS, which need better assessment tools and clinical data.