Lung Transplantation Committee

The Lung Transplantation Committee considers issues relating to lung procurement, allocation, and transplantation, including medical, scientific, and ethical aspects. The committee also considers the broad implications of such issues and deals with specific individual issues or situations. The goal of the committee’s work is to develop evidence-based policies aimed at reducing waitlist mortality in lung transplant candidates, increasing lung utilization, improving access to lung transplantation, and improving the health outcomes of lung transplant recipients.

Featured reports

• 18-month monitoring report: Lung continuous distribution (PDF - 3 MB) (12/2024)
• One-year monitoring report: Lung continuous distribution (PDF - 1 MB) (5/2024)
• Board Report on Continuous Distribution of Organs (PDF - 772 KB) (12/2023)

Current projects

Review

• Update on the Continuous Distribution of Organs Project
• Continuous distribution of lungs concept paper (11/2019)

Board approved and pending implementation

• Modify Lung Donor Data Collection (6/2025)
• Promote Efficiency of Lung Donor Testing
• Promote Efficiency of Lung Allocation

Implemented

• Standardize Six Minute Walk for Lung Allocation
• Modify Lung Allocation by Blood Type (9/2023)
• Update Data Collection for Lung Mortality Models (12/2023)
• Revise Lung Review Board Guidelines, Guidance, and Policy for Continuous Distribution (3/2023)
• Update Multi-Organ Allocation for Continuous Distribution of Lungs (3/2023)
• Updated Cohort for Calculation of the Lung Allocation Score (LAS) (9/2021)
• Establish Continuous Distribution of Lungs (3/2023)
• Incorporating COVID-19 Related Organ Failure In Candidate Listings (10/2020)
• Refine Lung Data Fields (9/2021)
• Eliminate the use of DSAs in thoracic distribution (1/2019)
• Modify lung TRF to improve post transplant lung function data (1/2018)
• Modifications to the distribution of deceased donor lungs (11/2017)

Committee members

Past projects from the Thoracic committee

Review

• Continuous distribution of lungs concept paper (12/2019)

Implemented

• Eliminate the use of DSAs in thoracic distribution (1/2019)
• Modifications to the distribution of deceased donor lungs (1/2018)
• Modify lung TRF to improve post transplant lung function data (1/2018)
• Modify pediatric lung policy (8/2015)
• Collect EVLP Data for Transplant Recipients (2/2018)
• Proposal to Collect Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Data Upon Waitlist Removal for Lung Candidates