Re-Transplanting Lung Patients

MCW physicians at Froedtert Transplant Center are now re-transplanting lung transplant recipients.

Until recently, only patients that were originally transplanted at this medical center were considered for re-transplantation. However, Froedtert Transplant Center will offer second opinions to any patient considering the procedure for a second time.

To qualify as a candidate, the patient as well as the family must agree that a second transplant is desirable. (In general, families more often support a second transplant than do patients.) Once on the UNOS list, re-transplant candidates are granted no special considerations.

The one-year survival rate of second-time lung-transplant patients is 50%. Currently, 1-year survival rates of first-time lung-transplant patients at Froedtert is 80%, compared with 70% nationally. Two-year survival rates of Froedtert first-time lung transplant patients is 67%; nationally, the 2-year survival rate is 60%. Long term outcome is not known.

Of all organ transplants, lungs have had the choppiest history. First performed in the early '60s, they were abandoned in the early '70s after poor results. Animal studies showed that the supply of blood to the new lungs was insufficient and that the transplants did not heal adequately. Transplanting the lungs and heart together ensured adequate blood supply and such procedures began in the '80s.

Today, the newest immunosuppresant drugs have made single and double-lung transplants -- without heart -- a possibility. Froedtert has been at the forefront of this procedure, having performed 25 lung transplants between 1991 and 1998.

For more information on Froedtert's lung transplant program, call (414) 805-3851.

Jane Janusz, RN
Froedtert Transplant Center

Each year, Medical College of Wisconsin physicians care for more than 180,000 patients, representing nearly 500,000 patient visits. Medical College physicians practice at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, the Milwaukee VA Medical Center, and many other hospitals and clinics in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin.