Lung Transplant Failure

This project aims to collect detailed clinical data, blood samples, and patient-reported outcomes from 2,600 lung transplant candidates, donors, and recipients at Lung Transplant Centers. The goal is to create a robust resource for various research objectives, including studying the impact of variations in donor and medical practices on clinical outcomes. The project also seeks to identify serum biomarkers associated with or predictive of specific post-transplant complications and conditions.

The purpose of this study is to determine the practicality of performing a future, large-scale study. The future study will look at the effect of mechanical ventilation in neurologically deceased (brain-dead) lung donors who are positioned to lay flat on their stomach (prone position), compared to donors who are positioned to lay flat on their back (supine position). The study will also look at the potential impact of prone positioning of the donor on transplant recipients of the study organs. The investigators are doing this study because the investigators want to increase the availability of donor lungs for lung transplant. Lung transplant is a life-saving treatment for individuals with lung disease, but there are not enough donated lungs to meet demand. Researchers are looking for better ways of preventing donated lungs from becoming unsuitable for transplant. Because of this, the goal of our study is to test whether prone positioning in neurologically deceased (brain-dead) lung donors can improve donor lung function and decrease complications, potentially increasing the number of donor lungs that can be used for transplant.

Lung transplantation (LTx) remains the gold standard for treating patients with irreversible end-stage pulmonary disease. Of the major organs transplanted, survival in LTx recipients remains the lowest (mean 5 years). Despite improvements, primary graft dysfunction (PGD), as defined by respiratory insufficiency and edema up to 72 hours post LTx, remains the leading cause of early mortality and contributes to the development of chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD) which is the leading cause of late mortality. PGD develops within the first 72 hours after LTx. The development of CLAD increases quickly with cumulative incidence of 40-80 % within the first 3-5 years. There is a general lack of efficient treatments for PGD and CLAD. Prevention of PGD is therefore of crucial importance and has a direct impact on survival. The present study is a randomized controlled study which aims to compare patients undergoing LTx with and without the utilization of cytokine adsorption.

Transplant results vary considerably from one organ to another. Lung transplantation has poorer long-term outcomes than other solid organ transplants, with a current median post-transplant survival of 6.0 years. Allograft rejection remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in all organ groups and is the leading cause of death, accounting for more than 40% of deaths beyond the first year after lung transplantation. Each dysfunctions impacts the fate of the graft and therefore the survival of the recipient. Their early and precise diagnosis is therefore a major issue. The identification of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying these different subtypes of dysfunction (transcriptomics, polymorphism of target genes of the immune system or tissue repair, cell phenotyping) is an essential step. It can only be done on the basis of a collection of samples linked to a clinical database allowing to contextualize each sample.