Lung Transplant Pathology: Antibody Mediated Rejection - AMR
The Tools
Recent advances in the pathology of lung transplantation and the recognition
of AMR as a fatal cause of graft dysfunction have imposed the need to
implement multidisciplinary meetings and to organize highly specialized
groups of physicians for the management of transplanted patients.
The assessment of AMR in lung transplant patients is more difficult
than in other solid organs given the continuous inhalation of foreign antigens,
which induce responses difficult to characterise as well as the frequency
of both viral and bacterial infections with overlapping histological features.
Our understanding of clinical, histopathological and immunological
features is an evolving/dynamic process which needs of multicenter and
multidisciplinary interactions.
The development and use of a minimum dataset (see
datasheet)
will allow the collection of detailed data from all relevant
specialists for audit and refinement of diagnosis through clinical evidence.
M. Angeles Montero (Pathologist, RBH, London, UK)
