A Japanese woman whose lungs were severely damaged after being infected with Covid-19 underwent surgery that doctors say is the first lung transplant received from living donors.
Kyoto University Hospital said the woman underwent an operation that lasted 11 hours and was performed by a medical team of 30 people on Wednesday, where lung tissue was transplanted from her husband and son. Some people have undergone lung transplantation as a way to improve health after infection with Covid, but Japanese doctors say this was the first transplant where lung tissue was taken from living donors.
Dr. Hiroshi Date, a thoracic surgeon who led the operation, said the transplant gives hope to patients suffering from severe lung damage due to Covid-19. "We have proven that we now have a lung transplant option (from living donors)," he told a news conference.
The patient became infected with Covid-19 late last year and spent months living in critical condition and with a device that functioned as an artificial lung, according to Kyoto University Hospital. Covid-19 caused so much damage to her lungs that they were more functional and she needed a transplant to live.
The husband and son offered to donate parts of their lungs. Donor transplants, whose brains are considered "dead" by doctors, are rare in Japan, while living donors are considered a better option, according to the hospital statement. The husband and son are in stable condition, while the wife in intensive care. He is expected to leave the hospital after two months.
Last month, U.S. surgeons performed a lung transplant considered "Covid to Covid," using lungs from a donor who was cured of Covid-19 but died of another cause, for a patient in his 60s. , whose lungs were damaged by the disease.
Burimet: CNN, The Japan News
