Outcomes of lung transplants utilizing donors from outside the continental United States.

Publication/Presentation Date

8-1-2025

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Efforts to expand the lung transplant donor pool have included re-evaluating geographic restrictions and accepting longer distances between donor and recipient centers. We evaluated the use of organs from donors outside the continental United States.

METHODS: Adult lung-only transplants from 2005-2022 in the United Network for Organ Sharing database were included and categorized based on donor location (mainland US vs nonmainland). Survival out to 1 and 5 years post-transplant was evaluated using time-to-event analysis and multivariable Cox regression.

RESULTS: Of 35,638 transplants, 389 (1.1%) utilized nonmainland donors. Nonmainland donors were younger (median 28 vs 33 years,

CONCLUSIONS: Transplants utilizing nonmainland donors had lower-risk donor and recipient characteristics. Despite greater distances and ischemic times, these transplants had similar post-transplant survival compared to transplants using mainland donors, supporting the use of select donors from outside the mainland United States.

Volume

9

First Page

100324

Last Page

100324

ISSN

2950-1334

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

PubMedID

40687313

Department(s)

Department of Surgery

Document Type

Article

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