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Purpose

The standard for diagnosis of acute cellular rejection (ACR) in lung transplant patients is transbronchial biopsy (TBx). TBx is associated with morbidity and inter-observer reliability. Further, many patients cannot tolerate TBx due to bleeding risk. Methods to detect ACR without the need for TBx would allow for more frequent and widespread use of screening surveillance bronchoscopy with less risk. We performed flow cytometry (FC) of BAL CD8 cells from patients after lung transplant and correlated the ability of 3 T cell panels to predict ACR.