Prolonged Invasive Mechanical Ventilation is Associated With Decreased Survival After Lung Transplantation Among...

Prolonged invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) after lung transplantation is an appealing early prognostic outcome as it can be reproducibly assessed both prospectively and retrospectively. Whether use of IMV at 72 h after lung transplantation is associated with post-transplant graft survival is unknown.

We performed a retrospective cohort study of 1511 participants in the multi-center Lung Transplant Outcomes Group cohort (2011-2018). Using Cox proportional hazards models and restricted mean survival time, we investigated whether IMV at 72 h was associated with post-transplant graft survival. We secondarily evaluated whether IMV at 72 h was concordant with severe primary graft dysfunction (PGD).

Participants requiring IMV at 72 h after transplant were sicker at transplantation (higher lung allocation score [LAS], increased extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or IMV bridge) and more likely to have severe PGD. Use of IMV at 72 h was associated with 55% (95% CI 26%-92%) increased hazards of death or re-transplantation after adjustment for age, ECMO, diagnosis, LAS, and intra-operative transfusion. The association between IMV and graft survival was modified by severe PGD (p-for interaction 0.002) but not by pre-transplant ECMO (p-for interaction 0.88) or pre-transplant IMV (p-for interaction 0.92). IMV was associated with increased risk of death or re-transplantation among those with PGD (HR 2.35, 95% CI 1.43-3.85) but not among those without PGD (HR 1.04, 95% CI 0.77-1.41).

Requirement of IMV at 72 h is an important early post-transplant outcome associated with post-transplant survival. This appears driven by those with severe PGD.