Northwestern Medicine study: lung transplants necessary for some patients' survival

Northwestern Medicine researchers have determined COVID-19 is capable of destroying the lungs' framework to an extent that patients require a lung transplantation for survival, according to a hospital news release. 

A recent Northwestern Medicine study, which was published in Science Translational Medicine, found the virus can create severe scarring and permanent damage in the lungs comparable to complications seen in patients with pulmonary fibrosis. 

“The progenitor cells in the lungs necessary for healing can repopulate wounds of the lung by moving along the basic underlying framework of the lung matrix," Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and Northwestern Medicine Lung Transplant Program director, said in the news release. "But when the framework is destroyed, the progenitor cells have no place to go and lungs develop large holes that serve to harbor infections, an observation we also made during the tough transplant surgeries in these patients. Think of it this way: after an earthquake, if the basic structure of a building survives, it can still be refurbished. However, if it is levelled, the only option is replacement.”  

The study also found that lung transplantation is safe to perform on critically ill patients --  including patients whose lung failure was caused by COVID-19 or another source of infection -- and that patients recovered quickly from the procedure, according to the news release. Additionally, the COVID-19 virus and other previous hospital-acquired infections did not return to the patients in spite of immunosuppressive medication use.

The research involved dissecting discarded lungs from COVID-19 patients who underwent lung transplants, as well as lungs from individuals who died of COVID-19, and studying gene expression. 

Northwestern Medicine has performed eight double-lung transplants on COVID-19 patients, more than any other health system, the news release states.