Background: Lower respiratory tract infection remains a leading cause of
morbidity and mortality after solid organ transplantation. The particularly
increased susceptibility to infection is especially in the early post-transplant
period, at the initial stage of immunosuppression, also due to direct contact
with hospital environment, by the mechanical lung inhalation, biopsies, injections, bronchoscopy, bladder and vessels catheterization and because of the impaired clearance mechanisms after denervation of the transplanted lung. Airway colonisation with Pseudomonas, especially Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is common in lung transplant (LTx) recipients. Therefore, we performed a retrospective analysis to answer what is the frequency of P. aeruginosa infections in our Centre.
Material/Methods: From January 2001 to December 2008 in Silesian Center for Heart Disease 33 LTx were performed (including 4 heart-lung transplantation, 6 double and 23 single lung transplantations). The respiratory samples were the main diagnostic material and the routine microbiological methods were performed.
Results: P. aeruginosa in 13 patients was isolated (39.4% of all 33 LTx). In 10
cases (30.3% of all 33 LTx) airway colonization together with lower respiratory tract infection were observed. In the recent four years the P. aeruginosa was diagnosed in about 50% of LTx patients at a given year (i.e. in the scale of given year in 2005: 33.3%; 2006: 57.1%; 2007: 42.9%; 2008: 40%).
Conclusions: Lung transplant recipients in our centre are still at high risk for
Pseudomonas airway colonisation and lower respiratory tract infection what has a significant impact on the post-operative outcome.

Keywords: Lung Transplantation