Abstract
Patients preparing for or recovering from lung-volume-reduction surgery (LVRS) or lung transplantation represent a selected group of patients with advanced chronic respiratory disease. Such patients typically have severe ventilatory limitation and disability and are at high risk of preoperative and postoperative complications. Pulmonary rehabilitation is an ideal setting in which to: address the patient's questions and knowledge-deficits regarding his or her disease and its treatment; ensure that the patient understands the nature, potential benefits, risks, and expected outcomes of the surgery relative to medical therapies, and; prepare physically and emotionally for the surgery. Pulmonary rehabilitation also may improve survival to and/or outcomes of LVRS and transplantation, at least in part by stabilizing and improving the patient's exercise tolerance and muscle function. Further work is needed to determine whether pulmonary rehabilitation can augment the benefits and outcomes of LVRS or lung transplantation, reduce postoperative complications, or improve patient survival to or following the surgery.
- lung-volume-reduction surgery
- LVRS
- lung transplantation
- chronic respiratory disease
- pulmonary rehabilitation
Footnotes
- Correspondence: Carolyn L Rochester MD, Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, Building LCI-105, New Haven CT 06520. E-mail: carolyn.rochester{at}yale.edu.
Dr Rochester presented a version of this paper at the 23rd Annual New Horizons Symposium at the 53rd International Respiratory Congress of the American Association for Respiratory Care, held December 1-4, 2007, in Orlando, Florida.
The author reports no conflict of interest related to the content of this paper.
- Copyright © 2008 by Daedalus Enterprises Inc.
