The Role for Cytokine Responses in the Pathogenesis of Lung Allograft Dysfunction

Lung transplantation is now considered to be a therapeutic option for patients with end-stage pulmonary disorders.1,2 However, due to problems of allograft dysfunction, 5 year survival rates are only 42%, as compared to greater than 70% for other solid organ transplantations.1,2 There are three distinct histopathologic features of lung allograft dysfunction. The first and earliest feature is posdung transplantation ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI). This is followed by acute lung allograft rejection and bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS), a form of chronic lung allograft rejection.