First Known U.S. Lung Transplant For COVID-19 Patient Performed In Chicago

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June 12th, 2020

The lungs of a young woman in her 20s became so damaged by COVID-19 that she could not survive without her blood being oxygenated outside her body, on an ECMO machine. She received a double lung transplant on June 5. In this photo taken before the transplant, the patient is being monitored by the ECMO team at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

(Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine)

Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago announced Thursday they’ve performed the first successful double lung transplant on a COVID-19 patient in the U.S.

The woman in her 20s was otherwise healthy, but developed a severe case of COVID-19 that resulted in hospitalization, says Dr. Ankit Bharat, Northwestern’s chief of thoracic surgery.

For two months, she was in the intensive care unit on a ventilator and another machine, known as ECMO, that pumps and oxygenates blood outside of the body. Although she eventually cleared the coronavirus from her body, she remained in severe condition.

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