Lung transplant: complications and quality of life

Abstract

[Excerpt] The aim of lung transplant (LT) is not only to extend the survival rate of recipients but also to improve their quality of life (QoL).1 Several studies have been conducted to compare QoL before and after LT.2---4 However, fewer reports evaluated the long term QoL, specifically the period when some late complications tend to appear.5 These include chronic allograft rejection or bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS), which are the major cause for decreased patient life expectancy.5 In order to prevent or stabilize these complications, LT recipients maintain a high level of immunosuppressants for life. In turn, the immuno-suppressive drugs induce different disorders, like arterialhypertension, chronic kidney failure, diabetes, hyperlipi-demia, osteoporosis, and infections (which are the secondcause of mortality after BOS), and increase the risk ofmalignancies, mainly skin cancers, post-transplant lympho-proliferative disorders and Kaposi’s sarcoma.6 [...]