A new gene-therapy procedure to restore function in lungs damaged during harvesting from donors could make more lungs available for transplanting, Canadian researchers said Wednesday.
Currently, only about 15 percent of potential donor lungs are used because the rest are too damaged to implant. The new technique, which has not been tested in humans, could prevent that damage or even reverse it, potentially expanding the supply of lungs.
Lung transplants are the definitive therapy for many end-stage lung diseases but are fraught with problems. Because lungs are more likely to be rejected by recipients’ bodies, the five-year survival rate is only about 50 percent, lower than that for heart, liver or kidney transplantation. And because of the shortage of donor lungs, about 234 Americans died while waiting for a lung transplant last year, according to the Organ Procurement and Transportation Network.
About 1,800 people are now on the waiting list for a lung, the agency said.
Dr. Shaf Keshavjee and Dr. Marcelo Cypel of the University Health Network in Toronto and their colleagues found that their treatment significantly improved blood flow through lungs considered too damaged for transplantation and improved their ability to take in oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. The technique worked on pig lungs, which were then successfully re-implanted. Human lungs also responded well to the treatment but were not transplanted into humans.
Keshavjee said the team hopes to begin human trials within a year. The results were reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
