Short-Term Outcomes Among Lung Transplant Recipients from SARS-CoV-2+ Donors and Evaluation of Lung Function Among SARS-CoV-2+ Donors.

There are reports of successful lung transplants using SARS-CoV-2+ donors, but the data on their overall outcome is limited. We used the United Network for Organ Sharing Database (UNOS) to identify all lung transplant patients who received lungs from SARS-CoV-2+ donors between 2020 and 2023. There was no difference in survival between those who received lungs from SARS-CoV-2- and SARS-CoV-2+ donors (P = .

Disease diagnosis and severity classification in pulmonary fibrosis using carbonyl volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath.

Background: Pathophysiological conditions underlying pulmonary fibrosis remain poorly understood. Exhaled breath volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have shown promise for lung disease diagnosis and classification. In particular, carbonyls are a byproduct of oxidative stress, associated with fibrosis in the lungs.

Identification of a marker of infection in the breath using a porcine pneumonia model.

Objective: Pneumonia, both in the community and the hospital setting, represents a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the cardiothoracic patient population. Diagnosis of pneumonia can be masked by other disease processes and is often diagnosed after the patient is already experiencing the disease. A noninvasive, sensitive test for pneumonia could decrease hospitalizations and length of stay for patients.

Evaluation of Donor Lungs for Transplantation: The Efficacy of Screening Bronchoscopy for Detecting Donor Aspiration and Its Relationship to the Resulting Allograft Function in Corresponding Recipients.

Background: Potential organ donors often have suffered anoxic and/or traumatic brain injury during which they may have experienced aspiration of gastric material (AGM). Evaluation of such donors typically includes a screening bronchoscopic examination during which determinations of aspiration are made. The efficacy of this visual screening and its relationship to post-transplant allograft function are unknown.

Veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for the treatment of respiratory compromise.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for the purpose of intervening upon profound cardiovascular or pulmonary compromise has proven to be a worthy intervention. Technological advancements have allowed this mode of therapy to become more effective and widespread. Veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV-ECMO) is a commonly used strategy to help manage patients with pulmonary dysfunction refractory to traditional management methods.

The American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) 2022 Expert Consensus Document: The use of mechanical circulatory support in lung transplantation.

Objective: The use of mechanical circulatory support (MCS) in lung transplantation has been steadily increasing over the prior decade, with evolving strategies for incorporating support in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative settings. There is significant practice variability in the use of these techniques, however, and relatively limited data to help establish institutional protocols. The objective of the AATS Clinical Practice Standards Committee (CPSC) expert panel was to review the existing literature and establish recommendations about the use of MCS before, during, and after lung transplantation.

Evaluation of Lung Cancer Patient Response to First-Line Chemotherapy by Integration of Tumor Core Biopsy Metabolomics with Multiscale Modeling.

The standard of care for intermediate (Stage II) and advanced (Stages III and IV) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) involves chemotherapy with taxane/platinum derivatives, with or without radiation. Ideally, patients would be screened a priori to allow non-responders to be initially treated with second-line therapies. This evaluation is non-trivial, however, since tumors behave as complex multiscale systems.

Lung cancer survival prediction and biomarker identification with an ensemble machine learning analysis of tumor core biopsy metabolomic data.

Introduction: While prediction of short versus long term survival from lung cancer is clinically relevant in the context of patient management and therapy selection, it has proven difficult to identify reliable biomarkers of survival. Metabolomic markers from tumor core biopsies have been shown to reflect cancer metabolic dysregulation and hold prognostic value.

Objectives: Implement and validate a novel ensemble machine learning approach to evaluate survival based on metabolomic biomarkers from tumor core biopsies.

Lung cancer metabolomic data from tumor core biopsies enables risk-score calculation for progression-free and overall survival.

Introduction: Metabolomics has emerged as a powerful method to provide insight into cancer progression, including separating patients into low- and high-risk groups for overall (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). However, survival prediction based mainly on metabolites obtained from biofluids remains elusive.

Objectives: This proof-of-concept study evaluates metabolites as biomarkers obtained directly from tumor core biopsies along with covariates age, sex, pathological stage at diagnosis (I/II vs.

Minimally Invasive Esophagectomy Is Associated with Superior Survival Compared to Open Surgery.

Introduction: Minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) has not been associated with a long-term survival advantage compared to open esophagectomy (OE). We investigated survival differences between MIE, including laparoscopic and robotic, and OE.

Methods: Patients undergoing esophagectomy from 2010 to 2014 with TNM, adenocarcinoma or squamous cell histology, in middle or lower esophagus were queried from the National Cancer Database and stratified into groups based on their surgical procedure: robotic, laparoscopic, or OE.

Computer-Assisted Image Processing System for Early Assessment of Lung Nodule Malignancy.

Lung cancer is one of the most dreadful cancers, and its detection in the early stage is very important and challenging. This manuscript proposes a new computer-aided diagnosis system for lung cancer diagnosis from chest computed tomography scans. The proposed system extracts two different kinds of features, namely, appearance features and shape features.

The profibrotic and senescence phenotype of old lung fibroblasts is reversed or ameliorated by genetic and pharmacological manipulation of Slc7a11 expression.

Increased senescence and expression of profibrotic genes in old lung fibroblasts contribute to disrepair responses. We reported that primary lung fibroblasts from old mice have lower expression and activity of the cystine transporter Slc7a11/xCT than cells from young mice, resulting in changes in both the intracellular and extracellular redox environments. This study examines the hypothesis that low Slc7a11 expression in old lung fibroblasts promotes senescence and profibrotic gene expression.

COVID-19 and low-dose radiation therapy.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative pathogen of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has caused more than 179 million infections and 3.8 million deaths worldwide. Global health authorities working on the COVID-19 outbreak continue to explore methods to reduce the rate of its transmission to healthy individuals.

Evaluation of disease staging and chemotherapeutic response in non-small cell lung cancer from patient tumor-derived metabolomic data.

Objectives: Despite extensive effort, the search for clinically-relevant metabolite biomarkers for early detection, disease monitoring, and outcome prediction in lung cancer remains unfulfilled. Although biofluid evaluation has been explored, the complexity inherent in metabolite data and the dynamic discrepancy between metabolites in biofluids vs. tumor tissue have prevented conclusive results.

A novel technology to integrate imaging and clinical markers for non-invasive diagnosis of lung cancer.

This study presents a non-invasive, automated, clinical diagnostic system for early diagnosis of lung cancer that integrates imaging data from a single computed tomography scan and breath bio-markers obtained from a single exhaled breath to quickly and accurately classify lung nodules. CT imaging and breath volatile organic compounds data were collected from 47 patients. Spherical Harmonics-based shape features to quantify the shape complexity of the pulmonary nodules, 7th-Order Markov Gibbs Random Field based appearance model to describe the spatial non-homogeneities in the pulmonary nodule, and volumetric features (size) of pulmonary nodules were calculated from CT images.

Intraoperative Esophagogastroduodenoscopy During Heller Myotomy: Evaluating Guidelines.

Background: National guidelines suggest routine intraoperative esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) during laparoscopic Heller myotomy (LHM) to assess for mucosal perforation and myotomy adequacy, but the utility of this is unknown. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of intraoperative EGD on outcomes after LHM.

Methods: Patients who underwent LHM in a single center were retrospectively identified.