Nutritional status and lung transplantation : an intriguing problem

Pulmonary transplantation (LTx) is a viable treatment option for patients with final stage lung disease such as cystic fibrosis (CF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and interstitial lung disease (1,2). Advances in surgical techniques, pre- and post-operative management have improved overall survival of lung-transplanted patients over the past decades. Despite these developments, lung transplantation has still significantly higher morbidity and mortality than transplants of other solid organs such as kidney and liver. For these reasons, several studies have been conducted to investigate factors that potentially affect the prognosis of patients who undergo LTx (3).