International Guidelines for the Selection of Lung Transplant Candidates: 2006 Update—A Consensus Report From the Pulmonary Scientific Council of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation

Overview of Clinical Lung Transplantation

“…The current International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) and also the American Thoracic Society (ATS) selection criteria include appropriate age, clinically and physiologically severe disease, ineffective or unavailable medical therapy, substantial limitations in activities of daily living, limited life expectancy, adequate cardiac function without significant coronary disease, ambulatory with rehabilitation potential, acceptable nutritional status, and satisfactory psychosocial profile and emotional support system (Orens et al 2006). Patients who undergo lung transplantation subject themselves to lifelong immunosuppression and surveillance.…”

Development and Validation of a Lung Transplant-Specific Disability Questionnaire

“…As expected, there were substantial differences in item response characteristics obtained in the RA and LT populations, so we next followed an iterative process for shortening measurement scales recommended by Goetz and colleagues. 20 During this process, we chose items to ensure we met four goals: (1) adequately represent all three conceptual subdomains (obligatory, committed and discretionary), (2) preserve the spectrum of activity difficulty and hierarchy of activities, (3) achieve scoring and scale performance characteristics in the LT-VLA that correspond closely to the original VLA measure and (4) validate important psychometric properties of the LT-VLA in a LT population.…”

“…1 Consistent with this priority, calls to incorporate PCOs into transplant decision-making are increasing. [2][3][4] To date, however, the tools to measure PCOs in LT have not been refined commensurate with the growing importance placed on such endpoints.…”

Lung Transplantation for Cystic Fibrosis

“…This concept is reinforced in a recent update of guidelines for the selection of lung transplant candidates: ''The decision of transplantation will eventually derive from a comprehensive evaluation that must take into account several indicators of disease severity such as FEV 1 , increases in oxygen need, hypercapnia, need for noninvasive ventilation, functional status (e.g., 6-MWD), and pulmonary hypertension'' (19).…”