Covid 19 coronavirus: Incredible lung operation saves US virus victim

Surgeons in Chicago have given a new set of lungs to a young woman with severe lung damage from the coronavirus, Northwestern Medicine announced.

Only a few other Covid-19 survivors, in China and Europe, have received lung transplants.

An X-ray of the patient's lungs before the transplant, showing severe damage. Photo / Northwestern Medicine via AP

The patient, a 20-year-old Hispanic woman, was on a ventilator and heart-lung machine for almost two months before her operation last Friday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

The 10-hour procedure was challenging because the virus had left her lungs full of holes
and almost fused to the chest wall, the chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital Dr. Ankit Bharat said.

"By early June, the patient's lungs showed irreversible damage and lung transplant was the only option," he added.

"If she didn't have a transplant, she would not be alive."

She remains on a ventilator while her body heals but is well enough to visit with family via phone video and doctors say her chances for a normal life are good.

"We are anticipating that she will have a full recovery," said Dr. Rade Tomic, medical director of the hospital's lung transplant program.

Surgeon Ankit Bharat in Chicago. Photo / AP

The patient was not identified but Bharat said she had recently moved to Chicago from North Carolina to be with her boyfriend.

She was otherwise pretty healthy but her condition rapidly deteriorated after she was hospitalised in late April. Doctors waited six weeks for her body to clear the virus before considering a transplant.

Lungs accounted for just 7% of the nearly 40,000 U.S. organ transplants last year. They are typically hard to find and patients often wait weeks on the transplant list.

The Chicago patient was in bad shape, with signs that her heart, kidneys and liver were beginning to fail, so she quickly moved up in line, Bharat said.

- AP