For people with life-threatening lung disease, a lung transplant may offer a final chance at treatment and a hope for a healthier, more active life. But sadly, for many transplant recipients, their new lungs can become attacked by the immune system reducing their ability to function properly. This is known as chronic lung allograft dysfunction or CLAD. CLAD is also known as Chronic Rejection. At present, there is no proven treatment for CLAD. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify treatments that can effectively stop CLAD early.

Extracorporeal Photopheresis (or ECP) is an established therapy, capable of calming the body’s own defence system. A handful of small studies suggest that ECP may be beneficial in slowing the progression of CLAD. However, there is currently not enough robust evidence that ECP is effective in treating CLAD for the NHS to use it routinely. The E-CLAD UK study aims to collect the evidence needed to assess whether or not ECP is effective in the treatment of CLAD.

Watch the following video which was developed to introduce patients and the public to the E-CLAD UK trial.