Browsing by Author "Jäämaa, Salla"

Lung transplantation (LTx) is a generally accepted therapy for end-stage lung patients meeting the international criterias. Chronic dysfunction of the allograft, called Brochiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS), is the most important complication limiting the long term survival of these patients. Known risk factors for developing BOS are episodes of acute rejection, CMV-pneumonitis and HLA-immunization. Other risk factors have also been suggested, as one of them gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and the possible microaspiration caused by it. In this study we followed during one year 15 patients who underwent a bilateral LTx in Helsinki University Central Hospital. Our aim was to find out if it is possible to determine bile acids from lung allograft recipients' bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) by using a commercially available kit and thus possibly find a useful method to verify the microaspiration in these patients. Our study demonstrates that most patients do have bile acids in their BALF samples during the first year after LTx and that this does not correlate with the reflux symptoms experienced by the patients. We were unable to show correlation between the bile acids in BALF and BOS developed by some patients, but our results indicate that BOS is preceded by repeated episodes of BALF neutrophilia.