Harefield Hospital study gives green light for smokers' lungs to be used in transplants

Smokers’ lungs are fit for transplantation, a survey carried out by Harefield Hospital medics has concluded, with almost half of transplant patients receiving them.

Just over a year ago the hospital, in Hill End Road, was apologising to the family of Jennifer Wederell, who died in 2011 just 16 months after receiving, unbeknown to her, the lungs of a 20-a-day smoker.

Ms Wederell, who suffered with cystic fibrosis, developed lung cancer after her transplant and her family say had she known her donor was a smoker, she would not have accepted the lungs.

But the new research suggests that transplanting lungs from heavy-smoking donors does not affect patient outcomes after surgery, with patients living as long as or, in some cases, longer than patients who receive non-smoker’s organs.

André Simon, director of heart and lung transplantation at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, said: “Donor lungs from even heavy smokers may provide a valuable avenue for increasing donor organ availability.”

He said even donors with a heavy smoking history can provide a much-needed lease on life to critically ill patients whose chances of survival diminish each day. Only 20 per cent of patients get transplants within six months. This rises to 51 per cent after three years, but by that time almost one in three patients has died.

The research team, including Dr Anton Sabashnikov of the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital NHS Trust, analysed data of 237 patients who underwent lung transplantation at the hospital in Hill End Road between 2007 and 2012. Since 2007, 237 lung transplants were carried out and 90 per cent of them were double-lung transplants. In total, 53 per cent were given lungs from non-smokers, the rest from smokers.

The patients in the research were split into three groups: those with lungs from people who smoked up to 20-a-day; patients with lungs from those who smoked more than 20-a-day; and patients with lungs from non-smokers. Patients with organs from donors with an unknown smoking history were excluded. The results showed patients with smokers’ lungs did not experience any severe negative outcomes following surgery when compared with patients with lungs from non-smokers.

The study results were reported in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.