Bronchial artery perfusion scintigraphy to assess bronchial artery blood flow after lung transplantation.
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The bronchial arterial system is inevitably interrupted in transplanted lungs when removing the organs from the donor, but it can be reestablished by direct bronchial artery revascularization (BAR) during implantation. The purpose of this study was to visualize and quantify the distribution of bronchial artery perfusion after en bloc double lung transplantation with BAR, by injecting radiolabeled macroaggregated albumin directly into the bronchial artery system. METHODS: BAR was performed using the internal mammary artery as conduit. Patients were imaged 1 mo (n = 13) or 2 y (n = 9) after en bloc double lung transplantation with BAR. Immediately after bronchial arteriography, 100 MBq macroaggregated albumin (45,000 particles) were injected through the arteriographic catheter. Gamma camera studies were then acquired in the anterior position. At the end of imaging, with the patient remaining in exactly the same position, 81mKr-ventilation scintigraphy or conventional intravenous pulmonary perfusion scintigraphy or both were performed. Images were evaluated by visual analysis, and a semiquantitative assessment of the bronchial arterial supply to the peripheral parts of the lungs was obtained with conventional pulmonary scintigraphy. RESULTS: The bronchial artery scintigraphic images showed that the major part of the bronchial arterial flow supplied central thoracic structures, but bronchial artery perfusion could also be demonstrated in the peripheral parts of the lungs when compared with conventional pulmonary scintigraphy. There were no differences between scintigrams obtained from patients studied 1 mo and 2 y post-transplantation. CONCLUSION: Total distribution of bronchial artery supply to the human lung has been visualized in lung transplant patients. This study demonstrates that this nutritive flow reaches even the most peripheral parts of the lungs and is present 1 mo as well as 2 y after lung transplantation. The results suggest that bronchial artery revascularization may be of significance for the long-term status of the lung transplant. (+info)
Clinical significance of expression of human cytomegalovirus pp67 late transcript in heart, lung, and bone marrow transplant recipients as determined by nucleic acid sequence-based amplification.
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Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection was monitored retrospectively by qualitative determination of pp67 mRNA (a late viral transcript) by nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA) in a series of 50 transplant recipients, including 26 solid-organ (11 heart and 15 lung) transplant recipients (SOTRs) and 24 bone marrow transplant recipients (BMTRs). NASBA results were compared with those obtained by prospective quantitation of HCMV viremia and antigenemia and retrospective quantitation of DNA in leukocytes (leukoDNAemia). On the whole, 29 patients were NASBA positive, whereas 10 were NASBA negative, and the blood of 11 patients remained HCMV negative. NASBA detected HCMV infection before quantitation of viremia did but after quantitation of leukoDNAemia and antigenemia did. In NASBA-positive blood samples, median levels of viremia, antigenemia, and leukoDNAemia were significantly higher than the relevant levels detected in NASBA-negative HCMV-positive blood samples. By using the quantitation of leukoDNAemia as the "gold standard," the analytical sensitivity (47.3%), as well as the negative predictive value (68. 3%), of NASBA for the diagnosis of HCMV infection intermediate between that of antigenemia quantitation (analytical sensitivity, 72. 3%) and that of viremia quantitation (analytical sensitivity, 28.7%), while the specificity and the positive predictive value were high (90 to 100%). However, with respect to the clinically relevant antigenemia cutoff of >/=100 used in this study for the initiation of preemptive therapy in SOTRs with reactivated HCMV infection, the clinical sensitivity of NASBA reached 100%, with a specificity of 68. 9%. Upon the initiation of antigenemia quantitation-guided treatment, the actual median antigenemia level was 158 (range, 124 to 580) in SOTRs who had reactivated infection and who presented with NASBA positivity 3.5 +/- 2.6 days in advance and 13.5 (range, 1 to 270) in the group that included BMTRs and SOTRs who had primary infection (in whom treatment was initiated upon the first confirmation of detection of HCMV in blood) and who presented with NASBA positivity 2.0 +/- 5.1 days later. Following antiviral treatment, the durations of the presence of antigenemia and pp67 mRNA in blood were found to be similar. In conclusion, monitoring of the expression of HCMV pp67 mRNA appears to be a promising, well-standardized tool for determination of the need for the initiation and termination of preemptive therapy. Its overall clinical impact should be analyzed in future prospective studies. (+info)
Retransplantation in a patient with cystic fibrosis.
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A patient with cystic fibrosis is described who requested a third lung transplant. The medical and ethical issues involved are discussed. (+info)
Recurrence of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma in transplanted lungs.
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BACKGROUND: Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma is a distinctive subtype of typical adenocarcinoma of the lung that tends to metastasize widely throughout the lungs but less commonly elsewhere. Because conventional therapies for intrapulmonary metastatic bronchioloalveolar carcinoma are generally ineffective, we treated seven patients who had intrapulmonary metastatic bronchioloalveolar carcinoma with lung transplantation. METHODS: Seven patients with biopsy-proved bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and no evidence of extrapulmonary disease received transplants of either one or two cadaveric lungs. At transplantation, all native lung tissue was removed and replaced with a donor lung or lungs. The patients received the usual post-transplantation care given at the institution. RESULTS: Four of the seven patients had recurrent bronchioloalveolar carcinoma within the donor lungs; the recurrences appeared from 10 to 48 months after transplantation. All recurrences were limited to the donor lungs. Histologic and molecular analyses showed that the recurrent tumors in three patients originated from the recipients of the transplants. CONCLUSIONS: Lung transplantation for bronchioloalveolar carcinoma is technically feasible, but recurrence of the original tumor within the donor lungs up to four years after transplantation was common. (+info)
Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency alleles and severe cystic fibrosis lung disease.
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BACKGROUND: Alpha-1 antitrypsin (alpha 1-AT) is the most abundant proteinase inhibitor within the lung. We have recently reported the surprising observation that cystic fibrosis patients with mild to moderate deficiency of alpha 1-antitrypsin have significantly better pulmonary function than non-deficient patients. This study may have been biased as it did not include the most severely affected patients who have died in childhood or those who have undergone orthotopic lung transplantation. The prevalence of alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency alleles in this most severely affected group of patients with cystic fibrosis was therefore assessed. METHODS: DNA was obtained from neonatal blood spots from children with cystic fibrosis who had died from pulmonary disease and from formalin fixed lung tissue from transplanted cystic fibrosis patients. The common S and Z deficiency alleles of alpha 1-AT were sought by amplification mutagenesis of the appropriate region of the alpha 1-AT gene followed by restriction enzyme digestion with Xmn I and Taq I, respectively. RESULTS: Seventy-nine patients were identified (seven dead, 72 transplanted). Two patients (2.5%) were heterozygous for the Z allele of alpha 1-AT and four (5.1%) were heterozygous for the S allele. This is not significantly different from the incidence in the normal population of 4% and 8% for the S and Z alleles, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These data support previous findings that deficiency of alpha 1-AT is not associated with more severe pulmonary disease in cystic fibrosis and may be associated with milder lung disease. Further work is needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying the progressive lung damage in cystic fibrosis. (+info)
Fungal spinal osteomyelitis in the immunocompromised patient: MR findings in three cases.
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The MR imaging findings of fungal spinal osteomyelitis in three recipients of organ transplants showed hypointensity of the vertebral bodies on T1-weighted sequences in all cases. Signal changes and enhancement extended into the posterior elements in two cases. Multiple-level disease was present in two cases (with a total of five intervertebral disks involved in three cases). All cases lacked hyperintensity within the disks on T2-weighted images. In addition, the intranuclear cleft was preserved in four of five affected disks at initial MR imaging. MR features in Candida and Aspergillus spondylitis that are distinct from pyogenic osteomyelitis include absence of disk hyperintensity and preservation of the intranuclear cleft on T2-weighted images. Prompt recognition of these findings may avoid delay in establishing a diagnosis and instituting treatment of opportunistic osteomyelitis in the immunocompromised patient. (+info)
Exogenous surfactant improves survival and surfactant function in ischaemia-reperfusion injury in minipigs.
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Reperfusion injury is the major cause of early morbidity and mortality after lung transplantation. This complication has been experimentally linked to dysfunction of pulmonary surfactant. Therefore, the hypothesis that reperfusion injury might be preventable by exogenous surfactant treatment was tested. Left lungs of minipigs were exposed to 120 min of ischaemia, and the lungs were then reperfused for up to 7 h. Animals were divided into a control group and a surfactant group (n=5 each). The surfactant group received 50 mg x kg(-1) Alveofact intrabronchially via a bronchoscope at the beginning of the ischaemic period. Bronchoalveolar lavage was performed at baseline before ischaemia and 90 min after reperfusion. Surfactant treatment significantly improved short-term survival. Pulmonary vascular resistance increased markedly in control animals leading to right heart failure and death within 3 h after reperfusion whereas the surfactant-treated animals survived the 7 h observation period. After reperfusion, alveolar accumulation of neutrophils and exuded proteins was present in both groups to the same extent. Surfactant activity after reperfusion deteriorated markedly in the control group but was preserved in the surfactant group. In conclusion, early surfactant treatment alleviates the deterioration of surfactant function and improves survival in this minipig model of ischaemia-reperfusion injury. (+info)
Genistein inhibits constitutive and inducible NFkappaB activation and decreases IL-8 production by human cystic fibrosis bronchial gland cells.
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The inflammatory pathogenesis in airways of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) is still unresolved. We demonstrate here that in in situ human DeltaF508 homozygous CF bronchial tissues, submucosal gland cells exhibit an absence of inhibitor factor kappaBalpha (IkappaBalpha) and high levels of chemokine interleukin-8 (IL-8) expression. These results were confirmed by cultured human CF bronchial gland cells in which a lack of cytosolic IkappaBalpha and high levels of constitutively activated nuclear factor kappaB (NFkappaB) associated with an up-regulation of IL-8 production (13-fold increase) were found when compared to non-CF (control) disease bronchial gland cells. We also demonstrated that the isoflavone genistein, a well known CFTR mutant Cl(-) channel stimulator, significantly reduces the endogenous and Pseudomonas aeruginosa lipopolysaccharide-induced IL-8 production in cultured CF bronchial gland cells by increasing cytosolic IkappaBalpha protein levels. Overall, results show that genistein is a potent inhibitor of the activated NFkappaB identified in CF gland cells. This strong inhibition of constitutively activated NFkappaB and the resulting down-regulation of IL-8 production by genistein in the CF gland cells highlights the key role played by cytosolic IkappaBalpha in the regulation of inflammatory processes in CF human airway cells. (+info)