Vellore, India, -educated Ankit Bharat says technically challenging operation saves lives.
For the first time, surgeons at a Chicago Hospital led by an Indian American doctor performed a double-lung transplant on a patient whose lungs were damaged by covid-19.
The patient, a Hispanic woman in her 20s, spent six weeks in the Covid ICU on a ventilator and Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a life support machine that does the work of the heart and lungs, according to a press release from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
By early June, the patient’s lungs showed irreversible damage. The lung transplant team listed her for a double-lung transplant, and 48 hours later, performed the life-saving procedure.
“A lung transplant was her only chance for survival,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the Northwestern Medicine Lung Transplant Program.
“We are one of the first health systems to successfully perform a lung transplant on a patient recovering from covid-19.”
We want other transplant centers to know that while the transplant procedure in these patients is quite technically challenging, it can be done safely, and it offers the terminally ill covid-19 patients another option for survival,” he added.
Before putting the patient on the transplant wait-list, she had to test negative for covid-19.
“Due to the ability of Northwestern Medicine’s ECMO program to support patients with life-threatening lung failure for extended durations, the patient could get adequate time to clear the virus from her body, allowing the consideration of transplantation,” said Dr. Bharat.
Dr Bharat, who did his MBBS from Christian Medical College Vellore, India, is board certified in general surgery and thoracic surgery, according to his official biography.
He did his Residency and Fellowship at Washington University. His clinical interests include malignant and benign chest and esophageal diseases.
Dr Bharat’s research is focused on lung preservation, transplant immunology and airway biology, achieved through collaboration with the Kovler Comprehensive Transplant Center and the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.
“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?
“The multidisciplinary research team at Northwestern Medicine is trying to find out,” Rade Tomic, MD, a pulmonologist and medical director of the Lung Transplant Program was quoted as saying .
“Covid-19 results in significant damage to the lungs of patients with severe disease,” adds Michael Ison, MD, infectious diseases and organ transplantation specialist at Northwestern Medicine.
“Opening the door to patients who have recovered from the infection to lung transplantation offers a potential path to recovery.”