Health A-Z

Medical Content Created by the Faculty of the
Harvard Medical School

Heart-Lung Transplant

What Is It?

A heart-lung transplant is surgery for someone with life-threatening breathing and heart problems. Surgeons remove the damaged heart and lungs and replace them with a healthy heart and lungs from a person who has died. The person receiving the new heart and lungs (the recipient) is someone with a high chance of dying within one to two years without a transplant. The person providing the healthy heart and lungs (the donor) is someone who is brain dead, but still on life-support machinery.

Currently, surgeons perform fewer than 50 heart-lung transplants each year in the United States. This number is small mostly because there is a shortage of suitable donors. The requirements for heart-lung donation are stricter than those for heart donation alone. Only 10 percent to 20 percent of people who are suitable heart donors also fit the criteria for donating both heart and lungs.

Heart-lung donors are usually younger than 50 years old, have no history of heart or lung problems and are free from infectious diseases. Donor and recipient should be about the same height and weight so that their lungs are about the same size. The donor's chest X-ray must be normal, and the donor's lungs must have normal elasticity (ability to expand). The blood types of the recipient and donor also must be a good match. At any time, about 200 patients are on the national waiting list to receive a heart-lung transplant. About 20 to 40 of these patients will die within 12 months because suitable organs will not be found. In most cases, potential donor organs are located through an organization called the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).