On November 1, doctors at the Foch hospital in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine) performed the first lung transplant on a patient who presented with acute respiratory failure following a Covid-19 infection.
- The operation went well.
- The virus led to the almost complete destruction of both of his lungs.
- This transplant is not the first in the world, in the United States and China double lung transplants have taken place.
It’s a first. A patient who developed acute respiratory failure following a Covid-19 infection underwent a lung transplant. The operation, the first for a patient with the virus, took place on November 1 at the Foch hospital in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine). This went well. “However, we must remain cautious, because the recovery of a lung transplant patient is often long and sometimes difficult.e”, commented Professor Édouard Sage, head of the lung transplant program at Foch Hospital, in a press release published on the health establishment’s website.
A first in France, not worldwide
The virus has resulted in a “almost complete destruction of both lungs“, said the hospital in its press release. The patient was first taken care of in the intensive care unit of the Lille University Hospital before developing a severe form of respiratory impairment. His condition showed no signs of improvement and lung transplantation appeared to be the only solution to save him. “The choice to have recourse to this ultimate and exceptional therapy is not easy and is subject to the results of numerous concordant complementary examinations.recalls Édouard Sage. The latter aim to detect potential contraindications that would cause the failure of this heavy program..”
This transplant is not the first in the world. In the United States, at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, a patient in her early twenties underwent a double lung transplant last June. There too the transplant appeared as the last solution while his lungs were destroyed in a way “irreversible” by the virus. In China, doctors performed a double lung transplant last March on a sexagenarian seriously affected by Covid-19.
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