Donor-recipient gender mismatch in lung transplantation: impact on obliterative bronchiolitis and survival.

BACKGROUND

Because of the shortage of donor lungs, liberalization of donor selection criteria in terms of age, gas exchange, and smoking history has been proposed.

METHODS

We evaluated a single-institution population of lung transplant recipients (n = 98) for donor-recipient gender matching. We measured overall survival, time to acute allograft rejection, and time to development of obliterative bronchiolitis (OB).

RESULTS

We found significant improvement in overall survival for gender-mismatched donor and recipient pairs (p = 0.078) and a significantly shorter OB-free period for male donor and female recipient pairs (p = 0.017).

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that donor organ allocation based on gender may affect long-term survival and other outcomes after lung transplantation.