Coronavirus left healthy woman in her 20s with ‘lungs looking like rotten burgers’
A HEALTHY woman in her 20s needed a new set of lungs after coronavirus left them "looking like rotten burgers".
The patient, who has not been named, was on a ventilator and heart-lung machine for almost two months before her operation last Friday.
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Surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago said Covid-19 had left her lungs full of holes and almost fused to the chest wall.
Dr Ankit Bharat, who carried out the 10-hour operation, said she remains on both machines while her body heals - but her chances of a normal life are good.
The young woman is among only a few Covid-19 survivors globally to have received a double lung transplant.
Dr Bharat, who is chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director at the hospital, said: “A lung transplant was her only chance for survival."
A lung transplant was her only chance for survival
Dr Ankit Bharat
The patient was not identified but Dr 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.
Dr Bharat said she moved up the organ transplant list when it became clear her heart, kidneys and liver were starting to fail.
Beth Malsin, pulmonary and critical care specialist at the hospital, said: “For many days, she was the sickest person in the Covid ICU – and possibly the entire hospital.
“There were so many times, day and night, our team had to react quickly to help her oxygenation and support her other organs to make sure they were healthy enough to support a transplant if and when the opportunity came.
"One of the most exciting times was when the first coronavirus test came back negative and we had the first sign she may have cleared the virus and become eligible for a life-saving transplant.”
However, during her time on the intensive care ward, while her body cleared the virus, her lungs were damaged beyond repair.
Dr Rade Tomic, medical director of the hospital's lung transplant programme, said: “How did a healthy woman in her 20s get to this point?
"There’s still so much we have yet to learn about Covid-19. Why are some cases worse than others?"
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Lungs accounted for just seven per cent of the nearly 40,000 US organ transplants last year.
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They are typically hard to find and patients often wait weeks on the transplant list.
Following lung transplantation, more than 85-90 per cent of patients survive one year, and report complete independence in day-to-day life.