Small recipient chest cavity from fibrotic lung disease in lung transplantation: Physiology matters

Lung transplantation is an established management strategy for advanced end-stage lung disease with the goal of restoring normal pulmonary physiology. This principle guided our management approach to the clinical challenge of a lung transplant recipient with a small chest cavity from fibrotic lung disease. Size matching should occur based on the recipient's predicted total lung capacity, which best reflects the recipient's normal chest cavity size. We present an instructive case that suggests that the small chest cavity size adjusts relatively quickly toward normal once the fibrotic lungs are removed, and normal allograft is implanted.