Non-pulmonary complications after lung transplantation: part II

Lung transplantation (LT) is a viable therapeutic option in the treatment of advanced lung disease. With improvements in post-transplant survival, complications involving different organ systems after LT are increasingly seen. While non-infectious, extrapulmonary complications after LT are not frequently responsible for early post-transplant mortality, they significantly impact the quality of life and long-term survival. These complications are, therefore, becoming increasingly relevant as patients with LT are living longer. These complications encompass almost all organ systems and are driven by a combination of the pre-existing comorbidities, events, and complications around the operative procedure and recovery, and perhaps most importantly, medication side effects of the post-LT regimen. In the first of the two-part review, we covered the general approach to management of extrapulmonary complications and covered specific complications pertaining to cardiovascular, renal, neuropsychiatric, and ophthalmologic organ systems. In the current article, we discuss most relevant complications pertaining to the hematologic, endocrine, and gastrointestinal organ systems. In addition, we discuss two of the most common and consequential complications under the miscellaneous category, namely malignancy and venous thrombo-embolism after LT. These two complications have gained increasing significance in the lung allocation score era where progressively sicker and older patients are being transplanted.