Lung Transplantation following Emergency Pneumonectomy in a Polytraumatized 18-Year-Old

Introduction. On rare occasions, a pneumonectomy needs to be performed after a severe polytrauma. Statistically, this procedure increases the mortality rate to 50%. One option to reduce this high rate could be an organ transplantation if a matching organ can be found. However, the current literature lacks any documentation of such a case. One reason for this stems from the fact that regulations for organ transplantation are very restricted and rarely allow exceptions. In addition, the chance for survival of polytraumatized patients in need of organs in the acute phase of the therapy is often quite unsure. Case Presentation. In this paper, we present the case of an 18-year-old patient who was involved in a serious motorcycle accident. His injury severity score was 29, but he suffered from severe bleeding in his lung which made a pneumonectomy necessary. The procedure led to a severe deterioration of his overall condition. An ECMO therapy was initiated, which effectively only slowed the aggravation. Therefore, he was transferred to our clinic where he was stabilized temporarily. A few days later, his situation turned worse. Since he had no other chance of survival, he was scheduled for a lung transplantation and was assigned an organ. After the transplantation, he stabilized quickly and recovered almost completely. Discussion. In this report, we want to show that an exception to the rules for organ transplantation might make sense on rare occasions. However, to increase the chance for any success, patients must be transferred to highly specialized clinics capable of treating patients with severe conditions. This might be the only chance for those patients to survive.