Double Lung Transplantation Is Better Than Single Lung Transplantation for End- stage Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Meta-analysis

Background: Lung transplantation is one of the most common treatment options for patients with end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the debate of whether single or double lung transplantation should be performed for these patients persists. We, therefore, performed a systematic search for studies on single lung transplantation, double lung transplantation, and COPD in the search engine of the medical database. Methods The rate ratio and hazard ratio of survival were analyzed. The meta-analysis included 15 case control and retrospective registry studies. Results The analysis showed a lower rate ratio in single lung transplantation in the 3-year (0.937 and P  = 0.041) and 5-year (0.775 and P  = 0.000) survival than in double lung transplantation. However, the hazard ratio did not show a significant difference between the two methods. Conclusions Double lung transplantation was found to benefit better than single lung transplantation in terms of long-term survival in patients with COPD.