Lung Transplants

A new gene therapy procedure to restore function in lungs damaged during harvesting from donors could make more of the organs available for transplanting, Canadian researchers reported Wednesday. Currently, only about 15% of potential donor lungs are used because the rest are too damaged to implant. The new technique, which has not yet been tested in humans, could prevent that damage or even reverse it, potentially expanding the supply of lungs sharply. Lung transplants are the definitive therapy for many end-stage lung diseases such as emphysema and cystic fibrosis, but they are fraught with problems.

A new gene therapy procedure to restore function in lungs damaged during harvesting from donors could make more of the organs available for transplanting, Canadian researchers reported Wednesday. Currently, only about 15% of potential donor lungs are used because the rest are too damaged to implant. The new technique, which has not yet been tested in humans, could prevent that damage or even reverse it, potentially expanding the supply of lungs sharply. Lung transplants are the definitive therapy for many end-stage lung diseases such as emphysema and cystic fibrosis, but they are fraught with problems.

A cystic fibrosis patient who received lung transplants from her parents was up and walking Sunday, showing a faster recovery than expected, her doctor said. "Her prognosis is good, equal to a standard transplant at this point," said Dr. Vaughn A. Starnes. Stacy Sewell, 22, of Quartz Hill was taken off a ventilator Saturday morning, 12 hours after the landmark operation. She drank liquid meals and spoke by telephone to her parents in an adjoining suite at USC University Hospital.

Lung transplants -- a treatment of last resort for cystic fibrosis -- are rarely beneficial to children with that condition and are often harmful, according to a study released today. Among 248 children who received a lung transplant over an 11-year period, only one clearly benefited while 167 were at a higher risk of dying after the procedure, Utah researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr.

A 29-year-old Carlsbad woman received a life-saving single lung in an almost simultaneous transplant with another recipient, in what may be a history-making medical procedure, Stanford University Hospital announced Monday. Mary Jane Anderson was in stable condition in the intensive-care unit after she and Patty Dirschl, 40, of Rancho Cordova near Sacramento each received a lung from the same donor during a 5 1/2-hour procedure in Palo Alto last weekend.

Survival rates for lung transplant patients are soaring as surgeons adopt techniques developed during the last decade by a group of doctors in St. Louis. Surgeon Joel D. Cooper and his colleagues at Washington University reported last week in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. that single-lung recipients had a 90% survival rate using the procedure. The survival rate was 82% for those who received two lungs.

A 12-year-old girl and her 46-year-old mother continued to recover Friday at Stanford University Medical Center after a potentially life-saving experimental operation in which the child received a portion of her mother's lung. "At this time, things have gone very well," said Dr. Vaughn A. Starnes, the chief surgeon for the operation, which is believed to have been the first of its kind in the world. "The mom and the child are both off the ventilators," Starnes said at a press conference.

Surgeons performed a rare double-lung transplant Saturday on U.S. Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), and a spokeswoman at the University of Mississippi Medical Center said the 60-year-old congressman was in critical but stable condition after the five-hour surgery ended. Spence, suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease, flew to Mississippi on Friday afternoon from Columbia, S.C., after being notified of a possible set of donor lungs in Texas.

Twelve-year-old Brian Smith, who is dying from cystic fibrosis, is arriving in the Southland on Thursday in the hopes of getting the lung transplant he needs to live. Entertainer Wayne Newton has donated the use of his private jet to fly Brian and his mother, Alicia Smith, from their home in Azle, Texas, near Fort Worth, to Long Beach Airport. Mother and son will be staying with Alicia Smith's sister Jerri Covington-Morgan and her husband, Terry, who live in Buena Park.

Doctors at Children's Hospital have performed what they claim is the nation's first double-lung transplant in a child, a hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday. Shellyan Schaefer Pearson, 14, of Tacoma, Wash., suffered from a pulmonary malformation that prevented her blood from being properly oxygenated. She was in critical condition.

Chiron Corp.'s experimental lung transplant drug Pulminiq failed to show that it reduced acute organ rejection in a small, limited clinical trial, Food and Drug Administration staff reviewers said in documents. The trial showed that more patients taking the drug lived for two years, but without more data it wasn't clear if that was a result of the drug, FDA staff said.

Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.), who has suffered from a breathing disorder for more than six years, underwent a lung transplant Tuesday that doctors said was necessary to save his life. The surgery began Tuesday night in Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Va. His spokesman, Duke Hipp, said that the procedure was expected to last three to six hours and that Norwood was expected to be hospitalized for two to three weeks.

Kentucky might be ranked No. 1, but Marquette assistant Trey Schwab is at the top of a more pertinent list. Schwab was diagnosed in 2001 with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis--an incurable disease that impedes the body's ability to process oxygen. He learned recently he moved to No. 1 on the lung transplant list at the University of Wisconsin Medical Center.

Jesica Santillan's long and arduous journey from Mexico to the United States for a new heart and lungs ended in futility Saturday when she died at Duke University Hospital, a victim of a transplant surgeon's fatal error. Physicians at the Durham, N.C., hospital, who had mistakenly transplanted organs with an incompatible blood type, declared Jesica brain-dead at 10:25 a.m. PST and removed her from life support machinery about 2 p.m. PST, hospital spokesman Richard Puff said.

Only one day after undergoing an apparently successful heart-lung transplant to rectify an earlier botched effort, 17-year-old Jesica Santillan was clinging to life Friday after physicians detected swelling and bleeding in her brain. Doctors said she may have suffered irreversible brain damage. Jesica's second transplant was required because during the first one Feb. 7, physicians at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., implanted organs that were of a different blood type from her own.

A 17-year-old girl who was left near death after a botched heart and lung transplant at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., received replacement organs early Thursday in an operation that offered a coveted second chance for both patient and doctor. Jesica Santillan, whose parents smuggled her from Mexico three years ago in hopes of replacing her defective heart and lungs, remained in critical condition after the four-hour procedure.

A woman with Down's syndrome who was initially refused a heart-lung transplant because doctors didn't think she was smart enough to handle the aftereffects underwent the desperately needed operation Tuesday. Sandra Jensen, 35, is believed to be the first seriously retarded person in the United States to receive a major transplant.

A 19-year-old woman returned home to wait for a new donor Saturday after her plans to undergo a rare triple transplant were canceled because a donated lung had been damaged. Brandy Stroeder, who has been fighting the Oregon Health Plan for the right to a lung, liver and heart transplant, had been flown to the hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., for the surgery after learning about the available organs early Friday.

On the eve of trial, the family of a Costa Mesa man has agreed to settle a case accusing a health maintenance organization and a doctor of not recommending a lung transplant because it would have cost them too much. George McCall was 58 when he died in 1999, three hours after having the transplant. The family contended he would have had a better chance of survival had surgery been done earlier, when he was in better health.

The widow and children of a disabled Costa Mesa man are suing a health maintenance organization and a Newport Beach doctors group, alleging that the patient wasn't told he was a candidate for a lung transplant because it would have cost too much. The case, set for trial in Santa Ana this week, raises questions about how a doctor decides what treatment is appropriate for a patient whose HMO will pay only a certain amount for care.