Patients who suffer from extremely compromised lungs due to primary lung disease often need a lung transplant--a way to replace one or both diseased lungs with healthy lungs from a donor patient.

Severely damaged primary lung disease can come from the advanced stages of conditions such as pulmonary fibrosis, COPD, pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis, and a few other types of lung disease. Whenever lung disease progresses to the point where a patient experiences difficulty breathing even while at rest, it normally is no longer able to be controlled medically and will require caring for the patient through a transplant.

Prior to having their transplant, patients are put through an extensive evaluation process that will include cardiopulmonary evaluation, infectious disease screening, and comprehensive evaluation of all other organ systems to determine if the patient has a medical history and current medical condition that are suitable for being a transplant patient.

The operation is complex and must be done with a coordinating effort between multiple specialty teams such as transplant surgeons, anesthesiologists, and critical care teams. Following lung transplantation, patients initially remain in the intensive care unit so that they can be closely monitored as they continue to receive breathing support and are monitored for organ function during the early phase of their recovery.

Maintaining post-transplant care is very important to the patient long-term and includes immunosuppressive medication to help decrease the risk of transplant rejection and pulmonary rehabilitation to improve the strength of the patient's breathing and overall physical activity.

With careful patient selection, many of these patients will experience a much improved quality of life, increased ability to exercise, and better long-term overall survival rates after undergoing a lung transplant. Many patients will also be able to experience much more comfortable breathing ability, allowing them to return to activities that had become difficult due to the progression of their underlying lung disease.