Actually two different questions:
1)
I was watching a (medical) television program recently, and one of the patients was to undergo a double-lung transplant.
One of the doctors quipped that “about half of lung transplant patients will still be alive five years later.”
A cursory glance at statistics for heart and liver transplants gives some rough numbers of 75% and 70% for five-year survival.
Any reason lung transplants have the significantly lower rate?
Another patient received a liver transplant. A doctor said that one thing you have to watch out for with transplants is blood clots.
A follow-up on this patient indicated that he died several months later as the result of a blood clot–I think in a blood vessel supplying his liver.
I would think that most blood clots that people have pretty standard treatment options. What would have made the blood clot to his transplanted liver harder to deal with?
(If anyone is interested, the program was the 7-part “Hopkins” that aired on ABC recently. The episodes are available for free viewing on hopkins.abcnews.com.)
My girlfriend received a liver transplant almost two years ago. Unlike most liver recipients*, her original liver was damaged by blood clots. She takes anti-rejection as well as blood thinning meds every day. I don’t know why the other liver transplantees don’t also take blood thinners but it’s probably because they are more likely to cause other problems than to help. For example, if she got a very bad cut, she is at a much higher risk of bleeding to death. She has to get her blood tested monthly and it’s a total pain in the ass to keep her blood thickness correct. She’ll often have to change her dose. Occasionally she’ll get a panicked call from the lab telling her that it’s way too thin this time and to be extremely careful.
I’ll ask her if she knows more when I get home tonight.
*most of the time it’s hepatitis or cirrhosis.
I want to add that the all time record for a liver transplant is 30+ years and counting.
The GF says that I was correct. The risk of blood thinners is worse than the potential for them helping. Although you have to watch for blood clots after a transplant surgery (and probably any surgery) they aren’t all that common. She’s in contact with a lot of transplantees through various support groups and has never heard of someone having clotting problems who didn’t have clotting problems in the first place.
She had one nitpick with my first post and it was in the aside. I said that most people need new livers because of “hepatitis or cirrhosis.” I should have said “most people need new livers because of cirrhosis caused by hepatitis or alcoholism.”