It’s another COVID-19 special on this month’s JHLT: The Podcast, which features two articles on COVID-19 and thoracic organ transplantation from the April issue of The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

 

First, the editors explore a study entitled “Heart transplantation for COVID-19 myopathy in the United States,” which comes from Gill and colleagues at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

 

The editors welcome first author George Gill, MD, to share what brought him from the United Kingdom to the States, and to talk about the findings of the study. The Digital Media Editors want to know how COVID-19 myocarditis impacts immune response in transplantation, how Dr. Gill manages different etiologies of cardiomyopathy, and some of the limitations of the study.

 

Next, the editors welcome senior author Nicolaus Schwerk, MD, from Hannover Medical School in Germany to discuss the paper, “COVID-19 in pediatric lung transplant recipients: Clinical Course and outcome.”

 

Dr. Schwerk is an expert in rare diffuse parenchymal lung diseases and end stage lung diseases, as well as congenital thoracic malformations in children, and performs lung transplantation. This single-center study investigated the impact of SARS-COV-2 infection on pediatric lung transplant recipients between March 2020 and June 2022 at Hannover Medical Center. The key finding of the study was that the COVID-19-positive pediatric lung transplant recipients did remarkably well.

 

The digital media editors dig in with Dr. Schwerk on the pace of COVID-19 infections in Europe, why antivirals are used differently in pediatric patients, and why pediatric patients typically experience a more mild course of disease.

 

Follow along at www.jhltonline.org/current, or, if you’re an ISHLT member, log in at ishlt.org/journal-of-heart-lung-transplantation.  Don’t already get the Journal and want to read along? Join the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation at www.ishlt.org for a free subscription, or subscribe today at www.jhltonline.org.