The patient suffered from acute respiratory failure due to the coronavirus.
This is a first in France. A patient suffering from acute respiratory failure due to the coronavirus virus had a lung transplant. This operation was carried out at the Foch hospital in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine) on November 1, reports the France-press agency, relayed by France Info. The patient, taken care of at the outset by the intensive care unit of Lille University Hospital, had developed an extremely serious form of respiratory disease responsible for "almost complete destruction of both lungs", according to a press release from the Parisian medical establishment. Over the weeks, his condition did not improve. And a lung transplant was then necessary. "The choice to have recourse to this ultimate and exceptional therapy is not easy and is subject to the results of numerous complementary examinations", explains Professor Édouard Sage, head of the lung transplant program at Foch Hospital, quoted in the press release. "The purpose of these latter is to identify potential contraindications that would cause the failure of this heavy program", he adds. The transplant went perfectly. However, the specialist prefers to remain cautious "because the recovery of a lung transplant patient is often long and sometimes difficult".
Northwestern Hospital in Chicago in the United States performed a similar operation last June on a 20-year-old woman whose lungs had been "irreversibly" destroyed by Covid-19. On the Chinese side, doctors had performed a double transplant on a woman in her sixties in March.