Donor Age, Recipient Age and Transplant Type: How Their Interplay Affects Lung Transplants

Purpose There is a hesitancy to use older donor lungs in lung transplants, and to perform them in older patients. To invalidate the use of donor and recipient age as relative contraindications for lung transplantation, we examined both, and factored in transplant type, then analyzed their effects on survival outcomes using propensity matching. Methods Patients were stratified by recipient age ( Results Using 743 lung transplant patients at our single center over 8 years (Feb-2012 to Mar-2020) in the pre-propensity match, there was a significant difference in survival outcomes for the group: ≥50 donor age ≥70 recipient age group in survival when looking at single vs. double lung transplant (p = 0.038). There were no other statistically significant differences in survival based on donor and recipient age, or transplant type. Post-propensity matching, there was no difference in survival based on the interplay between donor and recipient age, for donor group ≥50 (p = 0.092), for donor group Conclusion While donor and recipient age are undoubtedly important factors to consider during lung transplantation, neither of these independently affects long-term survival. Upon matching, there was no differences in survival for lung transplant patients based on transplant type. Older lungs and older patients can result in reasonable post-transplant outcomes.