Study Status: Active, not recruiting
Recruit Status: Active, not recruiting
Study Type: Observational [Patient Registry]
Official Title: Extracorporeal Photopheresis for the Management of Progressive Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome in Medicare-Eligible Recipients of Lung Allografts
Brief Summary:
The purpose of this study is to determine if Extracorporeal Photopheresis (ECP) is effective in the treatment of progressive Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS) in patients after lung transplantation. Lung transplantation has become the treatment of choice for selected patients with end-stage lung disease. However, long-term survival after transplantation remains disappointing. Chronic rejection (bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome [BOS]) has emerged as the leading obstacle to better long-term outcomes, and represents the leading cause of death beyond the first year after transplantation. BOS is diagnosed by the decline in the FEV1 measurement from a pulmonary function test. The management of BOS has been disappointing. In general, BOS is treated by intensifying the immunosuppressive regimen. Despite treatment, most patients continue to show progressive decline in lung function resulting in worsening functional status, quality of life, and ultimately graft failure and death.
Extracorporeal Photopheresis (ECP) has been used as a salvage treatment for progressive BOS with favorable clinical results in many cases showing patient improvement. On May 2, 2012, the Center for Medicare Services issued a decision memo statin the ECP is covered for Medicare beneficiaries for the treatment of BOS following lung allograft transplantation only wehn the procedure is provided under a clinical research study. It is highly unlikely that providers that currently order ECP for their BOS patients who have already failed optimized immunosuppressive drug therapy would be willing to randomize half of their patients to continue on their failed drug therapy.What is not well understood at this time, however, is whether certain coexisting disease states or patient-related demographic, functional, treatment-related or diagnostic variables might prove to have predictive value in identifying subsets