TORONTO -- Doctors have successfully completed the first double lung transplant in Canada for a man whose lungs were devastated by COVID-19.
“He had really no prospect of recovery as far as we could tell, things looked pretty dire and it looked quite unlikely that he would be able to pull through,” said respirologist and member of the Toronto General Hospital lung transplant program Dr. Stephen Juvet to CTV News. In mid-February, Sauve became the first COVID-19 patient in Canada to receive a double lung transplant.
Approximately 40 lung transplants have been performed for COVID-19 patients globally, a procedure that is considered high-risk with life-long medications necessary to prevent organ rejection. “We had a meeting with the other transplant centres in Canada, and they’re sort of looking and waiting, watching what to do…knowing that they’re very difficult and high-risk transplants to do,” he said.
“We’ve seen lungs recover in three, four or five months, they get off ECMO and go home to their lives, so when do you jump to transplant? How do you know that the lung is irreparably damaged – a lot of lungs can look really bad on CT scans and X-rays and recover,” he said.
Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)
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