Women Wait Longer and Are Less Likely to Receive Lung Transplant

THURSDAY, Jan. 9, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Women are less likely to receive a lung transplant than men and wait longer on the waiting list, but they have significantly higher posttransplant survival, according to a study published online Jan. 8 in ERJ Open Research.

Adrien Tissot, M.D., from Nantes Université in France, and colleagues examined the causes of outcome differences between women and men along the lung transplantation (LT) pathway using data from the Cohort in Lung Transplantation study, which included 12 participating LT centers. Analyses were performed for baseline clinical characteristics and in the peritransplantation period and posttransplantation follow-up.

A total of 1,710 participants were included in the study: 802 women and 908 men. The researchers found that women were less likely to undergo transplantation than men (91.6 versus 95.6 percent) and they waited longer before transplantation (115 versus 73 days). Independent factors associated with longer waiting time duration were female gender and pretransplant class I anti-human leukocyte antigen antibodies. Despite higher female waiting-list mortality and a higher proportion of male donors, female LT recipients commonly received lungs from height- and sex-matched donors. Survival was not worse for women with oversized LT. The overall posttransplant survival was significantly higher for female than male recipients (65.6 versus 57.3 percent); the prevalence of specific major LT outcomes did not differ with gender.

“Clinicians, patients, and policy makers must acknowledge this gender difference as it”s essential for appropriate action to be taken,” Tissot said in a statement. “Early listing for women or revising allocation policy of donor lung to recipient could be considered.”

Abstract/Full Text