Assessment and treatment of lung injury following brain death in a mouse model.

Lung transplantation serves as an established treatment option for patients suffering from a form of end-stage pulmonary disease such as emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis, or pulmonary hypertension. However, this life-saving treatment modality is hampered by the scarcity of suitable donor organs. At present, brain-dead (BD) donors continue to be the major donor supply for lung transplantation. Brain death follows a brains insult with raised intracranial pressure and compression of the brain stem leading to compleate and irreversible loss of its function. It is known for many years that the process of brain (stem) death may have detrimental effects on the function of all organs from a potential donor and the lung in particular. Brain death does not only impact organ quality but also enhances the allogenicity of the graft and augments the recipient's immune response. The inflammatory profile after BD is characterized by an increase in cytokines, chemokines, and adhesion molecules. The aim of the current project is to study the mechanisms of BD-related lung injury in an human and an experimental study in order to develop new treatment strategies to improve the quality of heart-beating donor lungs prior to transplantation.

Keywords:Inflammation, Donor, Lung transplantation, Immune response, Lung, Brain death

Disciplines:Immunology, Respiratory medicine, Orthopaedics, Surgery, Nursing