Telangana doctors perform India's first double lung transplant on COVID-19 patient

Hyderabad, Sep 12: Doctors at a hospital here claimed to have successfully performed the country's first double lung transplant surgery on a 32-year-old COVID-19 patient, who was suffering from sarcoidosis that affected his lungs.

The team of doctors led by Dr Sandeep Attawar performed the complex procedure on the man from Chandigarh, a release from Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) here said.

After recovery, the patient was discharged on Friday. The man was suffering from sarcoidosis, which affected his lungs. His condition deteriorated rapidly and a double lung transplant was the only permanent option for cure, it said.

The situation worsened when the man contracted coronavirus while awaiting the transplant. The patient's oxygen requirement increased from 15 liters per minute to 50 liters per min for the past eight weeks, the release added. He received lungs from a brain-dead person in Kolkata.

"The patient was a severe case of lung sarcoidosis, and COVID-19 virus only complicated the precarious lung condition. Fortunately, a match to his lungs was found in a person declared brain dead in Kolkata, and the harvested lungs were airlifted to Hyderabad to save the life of the patient," Dr Sandeep Attawar said.

"The procedure was complex and had little scope for errors; and only a timely transplant of lungs helped save the patient," he was quoted as saying.