The collection of disposable lung allograft (transplant tissue samples), blood samples and information from medical records for storage, future analysis and research. Stored samples will be available to other researchers who have obtained separate review and approval from an ethics committee called an Institutional Review Board.
Immediately prior to the transplant surgery, the surgeon or pulmonologist will routinely examine the lungs via bronchoscopy during which subjects will be medicated for pain.
The samples that are obtained during this and post-surgery (clinically scheduled) bronchoscopies, including bronchial lavage, are either sent to pathology or are discarded if they do not qualify to go to pathology. For this research, the researchers are asking that the samples that do not qualify for pathology be placed into the repository instead of being thrown away.
