ABSTRACT

The shortage of lungs available for lung transplantation is to a great extent a result of the low acceptance rate of potential donor lungs; it is known to be one of the limiting factors of the surgical treatment of end-stage lung disease. In the past, donor lung injury resulting from neurogenic pulmonary edema following brain death, pneumonia, aspiration of gastric contents, or trauma made up to 80% of lungs from multiorgan donors unusable. 1 Different strategies have been developed to expand the number of suitable donor lungs used for transplantation. Whereas approaches such as donation after cardiac death or living donor lobar donation 2–5 allow an increase in the pool of potential donors, ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) aims for more efficient use of lungs from the existing pool, thereby offering a chance to expand the pool through the use of lungs that had been turned down in the past.