Pioneering double lung transplant for young US woman
A woman in her 20s whose lungs were destroyed by coronavirus is recovering from a successful double lung transplant, according to her hospital Northwestern Memorial in Chicago. It’s thought to be the first such procedure performed on a Covid-19 patient in the US.
“If she didn’t get the transplant, she would not be alive,” Dr Ankit Bharat explained. The patient, who was healthy before contracting the virus, spent six weeks on a ventilator before the operation. She needed to clear the virus from her body before receiving the transplant, which took five weeks. During that time it was too dangerous to wake her up from an induced coma.
Doctors hope she will eventually make a full recovery, and added that she was now able to speak with her family. They hope it provides hope for other patients left with ravaged lungs after falling ill with Covid-19.
In late May, a woman with severe respiratory failure from coronavirus successfully received a double lung transplant at Medical University of Vienna hospital in Austria.
