Early bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome shows an abnormality of perfusion not ventilation in lung transplant recipients.

2015 
Abstract Long-term survival of lung transplant patients is limited, principally because of Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS). BOS is primarily classified based on airflow obstruction however there is recent data to suggest that the rejection process can lead to a restrictive ventilatory defect with involvement of the pulmonary vasculature. This study evaluates perfusion heterogeneity in different BOS stages by measuring the relative dispersion (RD) of an arterial spin labelling MRI blood flow image. Acinar ventilation heterogeneity ( S acin ) was determined using the Multiple Breath Nitrogen Washout technique. In 24 post transplant patients with a range of severity in BOS status, S acin increased as BOS level rose from stage 0 to stage 3. In contrast, RD-perfusion was not elevated at BOS 1 and 2 combined compared to BOS 0 and becoming elevated only at BOS-3. However, RD-perfusion in BOS-0p was elevated compared to BOS-0, without an increase in S acin . These results suggest that BOS-0p is different in nature from other BOS stages.
    • Correction
    • Source
    • Cite
    • Save
    • Machine Reading By IdeaReader
    30
    References
    12
    Citations
    NaN
    KQI
    []