Housecall for Health: Getting a Smoker’s Lungs

Patients awaiting a lung transplant shouldn’t be too picky when it comes to their donor’s habits, according to an international study.  Passing on the lungs of a smoker could be a deadly decision.

FOX’s Colleen Cappon reports in today’s “Housecall for Health”:

For patients who are on a transplant waiting list for new lungs, research finds lungs from smokers are better than nothing.  A major study in the British journal “The Lancet” says patients will survive longer if they are willing to accept lungs from anyone.

And although there has been controversy over patients dying after getting lungs from smokers, experts say not accepting them would lead to a spike in fatalities while waiting for donated lungs.

Housecall for Health, I’m Colleen Cappon, FOX News Radio.