‘Thank you for not giving up on me’

Double lung transplant brings COVID-19 patient back from brink of death

CHICAGO—Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital recently performed the first known double lung transplant in the United States for a COVID-19 patient whose lungs were severely damaged by the disease, saving the woman in her 20s from almost certain death.

Speaking outside of the Prentice Women’s Hospital, the doctors called the surgery a “milestone” in care for patients who are critically ill from the virus.

At least two other transplants have been performed in Austria and China.

“This is an important development that could help a number of patients who have sustained severe and irreversible lung damage as a result of COVID-19,” said Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the Northwestern Medicine Lung Transplant Program.

The damage to the woman’s lungs from COVID-19 made the surgery “technically much more complex,” said Bharat, who performed the surgery with a team.

The doctors also had to wait for the virus to clear the woman’s system while mechanically supporting her body, which was on the brink of multi-organ failure.

“If she didn’t get the transplant, she would not be alive,” Bharat said.

The woman spent about six weeks in the COVID-19 intensive-care unit on a ventilator and another life-support machine to support her heart, doctors said.

By early June, her lungs were showing signs of irreversible damage, leaving a transplant as the only option.

“Her lungs were so badly injured, we could not wake her up,” Bharat said.

A normal double lung transplant generally takes six to seven hours, but this transplant was complicated by extensive scarring on the lungs, Bharat said, highlighting how much doctors still don’t know about the effects of the virus.

“COVID-19 is a disease unlike anything we’ve seen before,” he said. “One minute, the patient is talking to you and looks comfortable, and the next minute, the patient’s oxygen starts to drop and the patient suddenly requires ventilation and intubation.”

The woman is currently in stable condition. Although she has a long road ahead, Bharat said he hopes she will make a full recovery.

“Yesterday, she smiled and told me just one sentence,” he said.

“‘Thank you for not giving up on me.’”