Imaging lung lymphocytic infiltration with radiolabelled Interleukin-2 in the follow-up of patients with lung transplantation; a marker of acute rejection

One of the major complications after a lung transplantation is the acute
allograft rejection. The use of several immunosuppressive agents contributes to
improve short-term transplant outcome. Nevertheless, about 1 in 3 patients
suffer from acute rejection. Till now, transbronchial biopsy and
histopathological examination is the method to discover acute rejection.
Histopathological lesions show a T-cell dependent lymphocytic infiltration,
which is driven by interleukin-2 (IL-2), among others. The use of
radiolabelled IL-2 (to 99mTc) should therefore allow the in vivo detection of
ongoing graft rejection by imaging activated and infiltratinfg lymphocytes in
the grafted lungs.

To evaluate the ability of the IL-2 scan tot detect the presence of acute
rejection in the transplanted lungs and the correlate the uptake of IL-2 with
the histopathological findings after transbronchial biopsy.

Mono-center, observational study

The only extra burden is the IL-2 scan. One hour after injection the patients
will be scanned during a 45 minute period. The total duration will
approximately be 2 hours.