\n <\/p>\n
X-rays show a 33-year old patients\u2019 new lungs (left) and old lungs (right).<\/span>Credit: Northwestern Medicine<\/span><\/p>\n A 33-year-old man survived for 48 hours without his lungs, after a medical team replaced the organs with an external artificial-lung system1 that it developed to keep him alive until he could receive a double lung transplant.<\/p>\n There have been cases in which people have had their lungs removed and been connected to an external device to maintain oxygen levels. But, the devices used in these cases don\u2019t count as artificial lungs because they do not maintain blood flow across the heart, meaning it cannot function normally, says Ankit Bharat, a thoracic surgeon at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, who helped to develop the artificial system.<\/p>\n Bharat says his team\u2019s design is unique because it maintains a balanced and continuous flow of blood to the heart, reducing the risk of blood clots that could trigger a heart attack. The findings were published today in the journal Med.<\/p>\n The engineering behind the artificial-lung system is remarkable, says Natasha Rogers, a transplant clinician at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, Australia. It is difficult to maintain normal heart function in the absence of lungs, she says. \u201cThey were really very brave.\u201d<\/p>\n The team\u2019s artificial-lung system could be used in other critically unwell people while they become healthy enough to receive lung transplants, she adds.<\/p>\n Before being placed on the artificial-lung system, the man had developed acute respiratory distress syndrome \u2014 an often-life-threatening condition in which the lungs cannot absorb enough oxygen \u2014 triggered by the influenza virus. He was then placed on a ventilator but developed a drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection. The infection caused parts of his lungs to fill with pus, and he went into septic shock, at which point his heart and kidneys began to fail.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was so sick, he had a cardiac arrest and he was actively dying,\u201d says Bharat. Because the man was too unwell to receive a lung transplant, the team decided to remove his lungs \u2014 the source of the infection.<\/p>\n Surgeons removed a patient\u2019s infected lungs. An artificial lung system kept him alive.<\/span>Credit: Northwestern Medicine<\/span><\/p>\n Surprisingly, the man began to improve quickly. \u201cWithin 48 hours, he was off all the medication to support his blood pressure, his kidney function was completely restored and his heart was working normally,\u201d says Bharat. At that point, the man received a double lung transplant and has showed no signs of organ rejection or impaired lung function years later. \u201cWe are now approaching almost three years since we did this, and the patient is doing really great,\u201d says Bharat.<\/p>\n X-rays show a 33-year old patients\u2019 new lungs (left) and old lungs (right).Credit: Northwestern Medicine A 33-year-old man survived for 48 hours without his lungs, after a medical team replaced the organs with an external artificial-lung system1 that it developed to keep him alive until he could receive a double lung transplant. There have been<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[5052,1564,1541,4840,1760],"class_list":{"0":"post-43153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-alive","9":"tag-artificial","10":"tag-man","11":"tag-organ","12":"tag-transplant"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Life-threatening condition<\/h2>\n
Pandemic invention<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"