The Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) in Chicago has performed successful double lung transplants on two of its COVID-19 patients: the first already went home while the other is currently recovering. There are two other patients in line for surgery after coronavirus severely affected their lungs.
The surgery is considered a desperate measure for people with irreversible lung damage. In 2019, out of nearly 40,000 organ transplants in the United States, only 7% were performed on the lungs because these are hard to find. Also, doctors would not remove a person's lungs if they see any chance they will heal.
For COVID-19 patients, they must be sick enough to require a transplant, but strong enough to survive the surgery. With two successful operations, NMH doctors seemed to have known the formula.
"I think people need to recognize this option earlier and just start at least talking about it before it gets to that point," said Dr. Ankit Bharat, NMH Chief of Thoracic Surgery and Surgical Director of the lung transplant program.
This follows as a patient seemed to have waited too long to get a surgery that he had kidney failure and major bleeding in his lungs that made surgery impossible. In other cases, insurance companies have delayed the process as they were reluctant to cover the surgery or to pay for the patients' transfer.
Two COVID-19 patients are waiting for transplants in NMH: one will fly from Chicago next week and the other one is from Washington, D.C.
Other hospitals also consider handling transplants like at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville where doctors performed a double lung transplant on a COVID-19 patient last July 24.
First double lung transplant coronavirus survivor goes home
Mayra Ramirez was the first COVID-19 patient in the U.S. to undergo a double lung transplant finally went home on Wednesday, July 29, after spending 95 days in the hospital.
According to New York Times, Ramirez said in an interview that she was pretty sure that if she was confined to another hospital, "they would have just ended care" and wait for her death. "I definitely feel like I have a purpose," she added.
Before getting sick, Ramirez was working from home as a paralegal for a law firm that specializes in immigration. She was in good health, although she had neuromyelitis optica, an autoimmune condition.
On April 26, she was brought to the hospital after weeks of getting sick. She was then put on a ventilator for six weeks before the doctors decided to put her under the knife on June 5 because "a lung transplant was her only chance for survival."
As Tech Times reported, the surgery went on for 10 hours, much longer than a normal operation because her lungs were "completely plastered" to her heart, chest wall, diaphragm, and the surrounding tissue due to coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Brian Kuhns from Lake Zurich, Illinois was the second COVID-19 patient to undergo a double lung surgery on July 5. He spent 100 days on life support before receiving his new pair of lungs.
His wife, Nancy Kuhns, confessed in a statement that she thought coronavirus was a hoax before Brian went ill. "If my story can teach you one thing, it's that Covid-19 isn't a joke," Mr. Kuhns said.
