Surgeons at Kyoto University Hospital in Japan have performed the world's first lung tissue transplant from living donors to a recovered COVID-19 patient, CBS News reported April 9.
The recipient, a woman from Japan, was left with severe lung damage after a COVID-19 infection she contracted last year. For more than three months, the patient was on a life support machine that operates as an artificial lung. Her lungs were significantly damaged, leaving transplant as the only option.
On April 7, the patient underwent an 11-hour transplant procedure, receiving lung tissue from two donors: her husband and son.
The surgery involved a 30-member team, led by Hiroshi Date, MD, PhD, a thoracic surgeon at Kyoto University Hospital.
The donors are in stable condition and the woman's medical team expects she will be able to leave the hospital in about two months, CBS reports.