TY - JOUR AU - Jones, Lara AU - Ross, David AU - Doud, Andrew AU - Kaur, Navchetan AU - Bhorade, Sangeeta AU - Keyt, Holly PY - 2025 DA - 2025/07/21 TI - Donor-Derived Cell-Free DNA Assessment in a Predominantly Hispanic/Latino Lung Transplant Population: Single-Center Analysis JO - OBM Transplantation SP - 254 VL - 09 IS - 03 AB - The demographics of lung transplant (LT) recipients show an evolution towards increased minority racial/ethnic representation, thanks to an increased focus on inclusion in LT access, healthcare and outcomes. Herein we assess potential differences in LT allograft health in a predominantly Hispanic/Latino (HL) vs Non-Latino/White (NLW) cohort during surveillance for acute rejection by analyzing the fraction of donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA%), a plasma biomarker of allograft injury. Of 245 LT recipients, median age was younger for HL (n = 108) but no differences for sex or LT type were observed. Of the 1,149 dd-cfDNA% samples, the proportion obtained during the 1st year post-transplant was higher for HL (45.3%) vs NLW (34.3%, p = 0.044), but there were no significant differences during the later periods of 1-5 years (p = 0.341) and 6-10 years (p = 0.096). The median dd-cfDNA% was not different across these time periods. A lower proportion of “High Risk” dd-cfDNA% results (≥1.0%) exhibited graft injury risk in the HL cohort − 33.4% vs 39.6% in the NLW cohort (p = 0.0079), respectively, which was also true for the single lung transplant sub-cohort (p = 7.45 × 10-8). Analysis of intra-patient coefficient of variation for HL vs NLW showed no difference [0.379 (IQR: 0.193-0.540) vs 0.408% (0.254-0.503), p = 0.087]. Our study found no difference in the injury risk by noninvasive dd-cfDNA% assessments, as a metric of organ health, across racial/ethnic groups and further supports clinical value of surveillance in the Hispanic/Latino LT population. SN - 2577-5820 UR - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.transplant.2503254 DO - 10.21926/obm.transplant.2503254 ID - Jones2025 ER -