• Federico Venuta, Daniele Diso, Marco Anile, Tiziano De Giacomo, Erino A Rendina, Matilde Rolla, Chiara Ricella, and Giorgio F Coloni.
• Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Rome Sapienza - Policlinico Umberto I, Rome, Italy. federico.venuta@uniroma1.it
• Eur J Cardiothorac Surg. 2011 Mar 1; 39 (3): 364-7.

BackgroundChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the leading indication for lung transplantation; however, these patients rarely gain priority on the waiting list until very late. The clinical status can be improved by surgical lung volume reduction; this procedure, although carries significant morbidity, has been repeatedly advocated as a bridge. Recently, bronchoscopic lung volume reduction (BLVR) has been proposed to improve functional parameters in patients with emphysema; however, it has never been reported as a bridge to lung transplantation so far.MethodsWe hereby report our experience with BLVR as a bridge to lung transplantation in four patients (males, mean age 51 years).ResultsAll patients underwent unilateral BLVR (two right upper lobe (RUL), one right lower lobe (RLL), and one left upper lobe (LUL); mean 3.5 valves per patient). No morbidity and mortality were observed. Three out of the four patients successfully reached transplantation after 6, 7, and 6 months, respectively. Two patients received single-lung transplantation and one sequential double-lung transplantation. The fourth patient died of respiratory failure 13 months after valve placement. BLVR was able to reduce the residual volume and improve the 6-min walking test and Medical Research Council (MRC) score.ConclusionsBLVR allowed to improve the functional status and quality of life of these patients. In a selected group of COPD patients awaiting lung transplantation, the reported short- to medium-term objective improvement may play an important role to ameliorate the clinical status and reach the time of surgery.Copyright © 2010 European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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