Canadian Pharmacy Warns Recipients of Smoker’s Lungs for Transplant

Should the lungs of smokers be included in lung transplants? A new study suggests their inclusion may be warranted. The issue raised is whether to continue with Generic Alimta for medication or consider lung transplant even if the donor is a smoker. 

The issue is not just a British one -- speaking to the Associated Press, Dr. Normam Edelman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association, said smokers' lungs are also used for transplant in the United States, although he did not have data on how common the practice might be. 

But the bottom line from the new study is that "patients awaiting lung transplantation in the U.K. are likely to survive longer if they are willing to accept lungs from any suitable donor, irrespective of smoking history," lead author Dr. Robert Bonser, of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and the University of Birmingham, said in a journal news release. "Donors with a positive smoking history provide nearly 40 percent of the lungs available for transplantation [in the U.K.] Rejection of this donor-organ resource would increase waiting-list mortality and is ill-advised." 

"Although lungs from such donors are associated with worse outcomes, the individual probability of survival is greater if they are accepted than if they are declined and the patient chooses to wait for a potential transplant from a donor with a negative smoking history," the authors wrote. "This situation should be fully explained to and discussed with patients who are accepted for lung transplantation." 

One expert in the United States said the study "raises a few issues." 

Dr. Len Horovitz, pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said that "because many patients may die awaiting transplant, one might argue that a lung damaged by smoking (not severely) would be better than no functioning lung at all. But lungs of smokers may be mild or moderately damaged (COPD), and also carry the risk of lung cancer, especially with post operative chronic use of immune suppressors. Nevertheless, in a dying patient, the prolongation of life -- however long that may be -- [and] the benefit is clear." 

Although these findings have clear implications for the United Kingdom, it "is important to realize that the relation between risk of dying on the waiting list and the benefit of accepting a transplant from a donor with a substantial smoking history can vary by country and center," Dr. Shaf Keshavjee and Dr. Marcelo Cypel of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program of the University Health Network in Canada, wrote in an accompanying commentary in the journal. This is regarded very important if to buy Alimta online could no longer withstand the condition of the patient. 

Smoking, particularly of cigarettes, is by far the main contributor to lung cancer. Cigarette smoke contains over 60 known carcinogens, including radioisotopes from the radon decay sequence, nitrosamine, and benzopyrene. Additionally, nicotine appears to depress the immune response to malignant growths in exposed tissue. Across the developed world, 91% of lung cancer deaths in men during the year 2000 were attributed to smoking (71% for women). In the United States, smoking is estimated to account for 87% of lung cancer cases (90% in men and 85% in women). Among male smokers, the lifetime risk of developing lung cancer is 17.2%; among female smokers, the risk is 11.6%. This risk is significantly lower in nonsmokers: 1.3% in men and 1.4% in women.