Background: Most lung transplant recipients experience improvement in their underlying pulmonary condition but are faced with the threat of allograft rejection, the primary determinant of long-term survival. Several studies examined predictors of rejection, but few focused on the early period after transplantation.
Objectives: To describe the pattern and predictors of early rejection during the first year after transplantation to guide the development of interventions to facilitate earlier detection and treatment of rejection.
Methods: Data for donor, recipient, and posttransplant variables were retrieved retrospectively for 250 recipients of single or double lung transplants.
Results: Most recipients (85%) had at least 1 episode of acute rejection; 33% had a single episode; 23% had recurrent rejection; 3% had persistent rejection; 13% had refractory rejection; and 14% had clinicopathological evidence of chronic rejection. Serious rejection (refractory acute rejection or chronic rejection) developed in 27% of recipients. Compared with other recipients, recipients who had serious rejection had more episodes of acute rejection (P = .004), and the first acute episodes occurred sooner after transplantation (P = .01) and were of a higher grade (P = .002).
Conclusions: Recipients who experienced higher grades for their first episode of acute rejection (P = .03) and higher cumulative rejection scores (P = .004) were significantly more likely than other recipients to have serious rejection during the first year after transplantation.