ABSTRACT
The diagnoses of cystic fibrosis (CF) and bronchiectasis in lung recipients represent a challenge to transplantation. Both conditions involve a huge bacterial load in the lungs, often with resistant organisms and persistence of infection in the upper airways. Previous surgery, be it pleurodesis or lobectomy, may add to the postinflammatory pleural adhesions. Finally, nonpulmonary comorbid conditions—diabetes, malabsorption, and liver dysfunction in patients with CF and background immunodeficiency in patients with bronchiectasis—may dominate the posttransplant phase. Such patients are some of the most challenging but most rewarding to treat with lung transplantation.
