Long-Term Outcomes After Lung Transplantation in Children With Intellectual Disabilities

The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) started recording data on intellectual disability status in 2008. This study aimed to characterize the long-term outcomes for children with intellectual disabilities (IDs) undergoing lung transplantation.

All pediatric patients (under 18 years old) undergoing bilateral lung transplantation were identified using the UNOS database. The patients were grouped into the following categories: no cognitive delay, possible cognitive delay, and definite cognitive delay. The primary endpoint was graft survival at 3-year posttransplantation. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to estimate the independent effect of cognitive disability on graft survival.

Five hundred four pediatric patients who underwent lung transplantation between March 2008 and December 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. 59 had a definite cognitive delay (12%), 23 had a possible delay (5%), and 421 had no delay (83%). When comparing these three groups, there was no significant difference in 60-day graft survival (p = 0.4), 3-year graft survival (p = 0.6), 3-year graft survival for patients who survived at least 60-day posttransplantation (p = 0.9), distribution of causes of death (p = 0.24), nor distribution treatment of rejection within 1-year posttransplantation (p = 0.06).

Intellectual disability does not impact long-term outcomes after bilateral lung transplantation. Intellectual disability should not be a contraindication to bilateral lung transplantation on the basis of inferior graft survival.