Long-term outcome and bridging success of patients evaluated and bridged to lung transplantation on the ICU

BACKGROUND: Evaluating and bridging patients to lung transplantation (LTx) on the intensive care unit (ICU) remains controversial, especially without a previous waitlist status. Long term outcome data after LTx from ICU remains scarce. We compared long-term survival and development of chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD) in elective and LTx from ICU, with or without previous waitlist status. METHODS: Patients transplanted between 2004 and 2018 in 2 large academic Dutch institutes were included. Long-term survival and development of CLAD was compared in patients who received an elective LTx (ELTx), those bridged and transplanted from the ICU with a previous listing status (BTT), and in patients urgently evaluated and bridged on ICU (EBTT). RESULTS: A total of 582 patients underwent a LTx, 70 (12%) from ICU, 39 BTT and 31 EBTT. Patients transplanted from ICU were younger than ELTx (46 vs 51 years) and were bridged with mechanical ventilation (n = 42 (60%)), extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (n = 28 (40%)), or both (n = 21/28). Bridging success was 48% in the BTT group and 72% in the EBTT group. Patients bridged to LTx on ICU had similar 1 and 5 year survival (86.8% and 78.4%) compared to elective LTx (86.8% and 71.9%). This was not different between the BTT and EBTT group. 5 year CLAD free survival was not different in patients transplanted from ICU vs ELTx. CONCLUSION: Patients bridged to LTx on the ICU with and without prior listing status had excellent short and long-term patient and graft outcomes, and was similar to patients electively transplanted. J Heart Lung Transplant 2022;41:589-598 (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)