Model of lungs (Weermeijer, 2019)
Covid-19 causes severe lung damage, and many people have received lung transplants to help recover (Hollingsworth & Jozuka, 2021). A Japanese woman from the western Kansai region of Japan has received a lung tissue transplant from living donors. The woman was infected with Covid-19 in late 2020, developing breathing difficulties which caused lung damage, so she had to be placed on a life support machine for over three months. After she recovered, her lungs were not treatable and the only option was to receive a lung transplant (Coronavirus Patient, 2021).
Many lung transplants have been carried out in China, the United States, and Europe, but only from donors who have passed. This operation was the first live donor lung transplant for lungs damaged due to Covid-19 (Covid Patient, 2021).
The woman’s husband and son both donated a portion of their lungs, and the operation, performed by Dr Hiroshi Dato and his 30 member team, took 11 hours. Both the woman and the donors are in stable condition, and she is expected to leave the hospital after two months (Coronavirus Patient, 2021).
"I think there is a lot of hope for this treatment in the sense that it creates a new option,” says Doctor Hiroshi Date, a thoracic surgeon who was the head of the operation (Covid Patient, 2021).
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