2024 Volume 40 Issue 1 Pages 10-16
Japan’s first living-donor lung transplant was successfully performed in 1998, 15 years after the world’s first successful lung transplant by the Toronto Group. More than 20 years have passed since then, and more than 1,000 lung transplants have now been performed in Japan. The results have been excellent, with a 5-year survival rate of over 70% and a 10-year survival rate of over 60%, which are some of the highest survival rates in the world. The number of lung transplants has been increasing globally over time, and in Japan, the number of lung transplants exceeded 100 cases per year for the first time in 2022. However, the annual number of pediatric lung transplants worldwide is only about 100, and only about 20 cases involve patients under 10 years of age. Japan is the only country in the world where living-donor lung transplantation continues to be performed, and living-donor lung transplantation for children is an essential treatment option because of the severe chronic cadaveric donor shortage in Japan. Therefore, in the hope that lung transplantation will become an established and increasingly used treatment option for pediatric patients suffering from chronic respiratory failure, the current status and future of lung transplantation are outlined in this article.
