Demography

Surgery

Transplantation

Outbreak

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Lung transplantation

Waiting list

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Internal medicine

Sociology

Medicine

Pandemic

Disease

Lung

Pathology

American Journal of Transplantation

For the first time in a decade, both the number of candidates added to the waiting list and the number of lung transplants performed decreased from the year prior; the number of lung donors also declined. This slowing of transplant activities in 2020 was associated with a modest increase in waitlist mortality. The year 2020 was notable for the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which undoubtedly influenced all trends noted in lung transplantation. Time to transplant continued to decrease, with a median time to transplant of 1.4 months across all waitlist candidates. Posttransplant survival remained stable, with 89.4% of transplant recipients surviving to 1 year, 74.8% to 3 years, and 61.2% to 5 years.

OPTN/SRTR 2020 Annual Data Report: Lung