Northwestern Medicine doctors utilized breast implants as well as an artificial lung to keep a man stable as he was undergoing a double-lung transplant.
A Man Needing Double-Lung Transplant
The man required a double-lung transplant but had a complex and complicated case. To get by with this, doctors had to make use of three main tools, namely, an artificial lung, some antibiotics, and some DD-sized breast implants.
Dr. Ankit Bharat, the thoracic surgery chief and director of Northwestern Medicine's Canning Thoracic Institute, explains that he never thought that they would be making use of DD breast implants to help a man with lung transplant surgery. Dr. Bharat adds that their team is known to handle extremely difficult cases and to go beyond the box in order to save the lives of patients.
The lung transplant patient was a 34-year-old man from Missouri named David Bauer. He began cigarette smoking at 21 years old and smoked roughly 1 pack in a day until he shifted to vape pens or e-cigarettes in 2014. Last April, Bauer started having shortness of breath and ended up getting diagnosed with the flu. He also developed an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection in his lungs.
He was then admitted to St. Louis hospital, where he was placed on an ECMO machine, which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. This machine does the functions of the hearts and the lungs.
However, Bauer's condition was observed to have gotten worse. Northwestern Medicine then received a call that Bauer needed a double-lung transplant.
Pulmonologist Dr. Rade Tomic, the medical director of the Lung Transplant Program at Northwestern Medicine's Canning Thoracic Institute, explains that Bauer's lungs were extremely infected to the point where they started liquifying. The X-rays showed that nothing was left as his lungs were fully filled with pus.
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Breast Implants For Man Undergoing Lung Transplant
The team then determined that for Bauer to survive the lung transplant surgery, it is important to clear out his infection first. For this to be achieved, they had to remove his infected lungs.
For oxygen to still be delivered to the organs of the man while the lungs were removed, the team used some of an ECMO machine's pieces to make channels that would make oxygenated blood keep flowing to the man's heart and other body organs.
Dr. Bharat explains that he spent the entire night thinking about how these channels could be made. However, even if the artificial channels were there, the team still needed to physically support the heart of Bauer amidst the lung removal. They then decided in the end that breast implants were the best option for this.
Dr. Bharat notes that one of their plastic surgeons gave them a fast course on the various sizes, shapes, and types of breast implants. They then noted some options, with some of them being easier to add to the chest of Bauer. They found that DD was the best fit for the man.
The lungs of Bauer were removed on May 26. His name was then up for new lungs the next day, and the procedure was finished on May 28. He was then discharged for further rehabilitation therapy last September after spending several months in the intensive care unit.
Bauer explains that he is proud to be the first patient of Northwestern Medicine to undergo the novel procedure, further noting his hopes that his case could pave a way for other patients to be recipients of lung transplants.
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