Survival worse in lung recipients of donors with diabetes

SEATTLE — Patients who received a single lung transplantation from a donor with diabetes were at a significantly increased risk for mortality compared with lung recipients of donors without diabetes, according to data presented at the American Association for Thoracic Surgery Annual Meeting.

Vishnu Ambur, MD, Temple University School of Medicine, and colleagues examined 4,278 adult, single lung transplant recipients between January 2006 and June 2014 from the United Network for Organ Sharing Database to investigate the effect of donors with diabetes in lung transplantation.

Among all lung transplants, 7.2% were performed with donors with diabetes, including 50.3% who had diabetes for more than 5 years. Donors with diabetes were more likely to be older (45.8 years vs. 33.6 years; P < .001) than those without diabetes. Patients who received transplants from donors with diabetes were more likely to be race matched (48.7% vs. 42.4%; P = .03) than recipients of donors without diabetes.

In multivariate analysis, patients who received a single lung transplant from a donor with diabetes showed increased mortality (OR = 1.28; 95% CI, 1.07-2.54).

Recipients who were transplanted from donors with diabetes also had longer hospital stays (25.6 days vs. 19.9 days; P = .01) than those of donors without diabetes.

Median survival was shorter in single lung recipients of donors with diabetes (3.48 years) compared with recipients of donors without diabetes (4.68 years). Duration of diabetes also impacted recipient survival. Among donors who had diabetes for more than 5 years, median survival for recipients was 2.53 years; it increased to 4.29 years when donors had diabetes for less than 5 years.

“That’s interesting to note that the survival time for diabetes less than 5 years was similar to the nondiabetic group,” Ambur said during a presentation. – by Ryan McDonald

Reference:

Ambur V, et al. Abstract 109. Presented at: the American Association for Thoracic Surgery Annual Meeting; April 25-29, 2015; Seattle.

Disclosure: Ambur reports no relevant financial disclosures.