Lung transplantation for pulmonary sarcoidosis. Twenty-five years of experience in the USA

Objective: Lung transplantation is the ultimate treatment for end-stage pulmonary sarcoidosis. Post-transplant survival outcomes remain unclear. Methods: Survival models were used to assess survival and graft outcomes in patients with sarcoid among 20 896 lung transplants performed in the USA. Results: 695 lung recipients were transplanted for pulmonary sarcoidosis. Sarcoid lung recipients had similar median survival rate (69.7 months (IQR 60.2-79.3)) compared with the nonsarcoid lung recipients (63.1 months (IQR 61.4-64.8), p=0.88). In multivariate Cox regression, sarcoidosis was not independently associated with worse mortality (HR 0.96 (95% CI 0.85 to 1.08), p=0.51). Among the sarcoid lung recipients, double lung transplantation (HR 0.76 (0.58 to 0.99), p=0.04) and lung allocation score era (HR 0.74 (0.56 to 0.97), p=0.03) were associated with improved survival. Conclusions: Recipients of lung transplants for pulmonary sarcoidosis had similar outcomes compared with nonsarcoid lung recipients.