The first COVID-19 patient in the US to receive a double lung transplant was released from the hospital this week, according to news reports.
After the coronavirus inflicted irreversible damage to his lungs, Mayra Ramírez, 28, underwent the transplant on June 5. Live Science previously reported. To qualify for the procedure, you first had to give negative for virus, since transplant patients must take immunosuppressive medications after surgery. Drugs prevent the body from rejecting the new organ, but hinder immune systemThe ability to fight an active infection.
“Once Mayra’s body cleared the virus, it became clear that the lung damage was not going to heal, and we had to list her lung transplant, “Dr. Beth Malsin, pulmonary and critical care specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, he said in a statement. Ramírez received his new lungs two days later.
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Ramírez woke up after the 10-hour operation with “all these tubes” coming out of her – “I just couldn’t recognize my own body,” he said. The New York Times. Before surgery, Ramírez spent six weeks in the intensive care unit (ICU) in a ventilator and an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which pumps oxygenated blood through the body when the heart and lungs cannot do it alone.
“I don’t remember anything during my six weeks in COVID ICU. When I finally woke up, it was mid-June and I had no idea why I was in a hospital bed,” Ramírez said in the Northwestern statement. When he finally woke up, his nurses asked him if he knew the date, and Ramírez assumed it was in early May, according to the Times. He was able to return home on July 29.
Ramírez must take anti-rejection medications for the rest of his life, but because he is young and healthy, “he will continue to grow stronger and stronger,” his surgeon Dr. Ankit Bharat told the New York Times. After lung transplants, more than 85% to 90% of patients survive a year and can function independently in daily life, Live Science previously reported. According to him UK National Health Service.
“She asked if she could skydive. We will probably get her there in a few months,” Bharat said of Ramirez.
After Ramirez’s transplant, Northwestern performed a second double-lung transplant for Brian Kuhns, a 62-year-old coronavirus patient.
“Mayra and Brian would not be alive today without double lung transplants,” Bharat said in the statement. “COVID-19 completely destroyed their light, and were seriously ill upon entering the transplant procedure, which made it a daunting task. “The procedure generally takes six to seven hours, but both Kuhns and Ramírez underwent 10-hour surgeries because there was so much inflammation and tissue dead in the lungs.
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With Kuhns and Ramirez now in recovery, Northwestern has two additional COVID-19 patients awaiting double-lung transplants, and the hospital is consulting with other transplant centers on how to approach difficult surgery, the Times reported.
“It will be a challenge for physicians to determine which patients are truly candidates and what the time is,” Dr. Tiago Machuca, a thoracic surgeon at the University of Florida Health Health Hospital in Gainesville, told the Times. A COVID-19 patient transferred from another state recently received a double lung transplant at Shands Hospital, he noted.
“We don’t want to do it too early when the patient can still recover from COVID lung disease and resume a good quality of life, but he also doesn’t want to miss the boat and have a patient where it’s useless, the patient is very sick,” he said.
“I think people need to recognize this option sooner and start talking about it before that time comes,” Bharat told the Times.
Originally published in Live Science.
