Photo/Illutration The Asahi Shimbun

KYOTO--Doctors at Kyoto University Hospital here have performed the world's first lung transplant from live donors to a patient confirmed to have had COVID-19.

The disease led to serious pneumonia symptoms for the female patient even after three months of treatment, so the decision was made to transplant part of the lungs of the woman’s husband and son to her.

According to hospital officials, the woman lives in the Kansai region and came down with COVID-19 toward the end of last year. Her breathing problems worsened, and she was hospitalized in another hospital in the Kansai region.

She was placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) device, which circulates blood through an artificial lung.

But her lungs continued to shrink and harden even after it was confirmed the novel coronavirus had left her system.

With no signs the woman’s condition would improve, family members volunteered to donate parts of their lungs since the woman did not have any other organ problems and was conscious.

She was transferred to Kyoto University Hospital on April 5 and the transplant was conducted two days later. She is now recovering in the intensive care unit, and is expected to leave the hospital in about two months and resume her former life in three months’ time.

Her husband and son are also doing well.

There have been cases in China and the West of lung transplants to COVID-19 patients, but those have been from donors certified as being brain dead.

With the availability of brain dead donors being very low in Japan, Kyoto University Hospital officials said transplants from live donors was a more readily available option to patients.

But one condition is that the recipient not have any pre-existing health problems. Because patients placed on ECMO devices usually have such underlying conditions, the use of transplants from live donors is expected to be very limited.

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