Smoky lungs are not dangerous during transplantation
The lungs of heavy smokers were allowed to be transplanted
Such conclusions were reached by American scientists from Temple University Hospital in the course of a large-scale study, the results of which were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in Los Angeles, reports CBS (Lungs from heavy smokers may be okay for transplants).
Doctor of Medical Sciences, cardiothoracic surgeon Sharven Taghavi, together with his colleagues, analyzed data on 5,900 patients who received new lungs from 2005 to 2011. The organ donor for 13 percent of them (766 people) were heavy smokers – people who smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years. According to the researchers, the organs of avid tobacco users were transplanted mainly to those who smoke themselves.
In the course of the study, scientists compared the indicators of patients who received smoker's lungs with those who received organs from healthy people. The two groups were similar in age of the recipients, numerical assessment of their health, determining their place on the waiting list (lung allocation score) before transplantation and gender composition.
Organs from heavy smokers were mostly transplanted to patients whose lungs functioned worse and had a smaller volume of forced exhalation (FEV – the volume of air coming out with the fastest and strongest exhalation after the deepest inhalation – serves to assess the condition of the lungs). However, such lungs were better suited to these recipients in terms of tissue compatibility with the donor.
It turned out that recipients who received a new organ from smokers on average lived for 5.6 years after surgery; in the other group, this indicator reached 5.3 years. Lung function indicators, such as FEV, differed by only one percent in the two groups of recipients. The number of cases of transplant rejection, the occurrence of malignant neoplasms and other chronic diseases was approximately the same in both groups.
According to the authors of the work, the inclusion of smokers in the list of potential lung donors will help reduce mortality among patients awaiting transplantation. There is an acute shortage of donor lungs in the United States – only half of those on the waiting list receive a new organ within a year. Meanwhile, the life expectancy of such patients without transplantation is limited to 1-2 years.
However, the researchers asked to be cautious about this initiative. "Not every smoker's lungs are suitable for transplantation," Tagavi stressed. He called on surgeons in case of such a decision to comprehensively check a potential transplant, including for hidden forms of cancer of unknown origin.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru31.01.2013