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NHLBI awards grant for lung transplant research to N.C. surgeon
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Thomas Egan, MD, a professor of surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was awarded an NIH grant to study perfusion and ventilation of lungs outside the body before transplant.
The two-year study grant totaled $1.47 million and the results, and according to a press release, could potentially lead to a significant increase in the number of lungs available for transplant. The grant was awarded under the NHLBI’s Translational Research Implementation Program. Egan is currently a surgeon in the University of North Carolina’s division of cardiothoracic surgery.
“I have been involved in lung transplantation from its inception at UNC and have seen first-hand the suffering and unnecessary death that results from the shortage of lung donors in the United States,” Michael Knowles, MD, a pulmonologist at the University of North Carolina and a collaborator on the study with Egan, said in a press release.
Egan designed an ex-vivo perfusion and circulation circuit into which the lungs are placed and evaluated before the transplantation procedure. According to the press release, lungs treated in such a manner could be treated to reduce ischemia-reperfusion injury during transplantation, resulting in less graft dysfunction or failure and improved chances of survival. Egan’s group is also planning a multicenter clinical trial to examine the ex-vivo use of the perfusion and ventilation system on lungs retrieved after death and from donors whose hearts ceased beating. Egan was the first scientist to demonstrate that lungs could be retrieved from non-heart-beating donors and safely transplanted.