TOKYO – Doctors in Japan announced on Thursday that they had performed the world’s first transplant of lung tissue from living donors to a patient with severe lung damage due to COVID-19.
The recipient, who is only identified as a woman from the western region of Kansai in Japan, is recovering after the nearly 11-hour operation Wednesday, Kyoto University Hospital said in a statement. It said her husband and son, who donated parts of their lungs, are also in a stable condition.
The university said it was the world’s first transplant of lung tissue from living donors to a person with COVID-19 lung damage. Transplantation of brain-dead donors in Japan is still rare, and living donors are considered a more realistic option for patients.
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“We have shown that we now have an option of lung transplants (from living donors),” said Dr. Hiroshi Date, a breast surgeon at the hospital that led the operation, said at a news conference. “I think it’s a treatment that gives hope to patients” with severe lung damage due to COVID-19, he said.
April 9, 2021: This combination of x-rays provided by Kyoto University Hospital on April 9, 2021 shows the chest of a patient before the operation, left and after the operation, right.
(Kyoto University Hospital via AP)
The University of Kyoto has said dozens of transplants of parts of the lungs taken from brain-dead donors to patients with COVID-19-related lung damage have been done in the United States, Europe and China.
The woman contracted COVID-19 late last year and developed respiratory problems that quickly worsened. She was placed on a life-support machine that has been working as an artificial lung in another hospital for more than three months because her lungs were so badly damaged.
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Even after she was free of the virus, her lungs were no longer functional or treatable, and the only option for her to survive was to get a lung transplant, the university said.
Her husband and son volunteered to donate parts of their lungs, and the operation was performed at Kyoto University Hospital by a team of thirty members led by dr. Date. Her husband donated part of his left lung, and the son donated part of his right lung.
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She is expected to be able to leave the hospital in about two months and return to her normal life in three months, the university said.