MILAN - Both lungs transplanted to an 18-year-old boy, reduced to death by Covid-19 who had 'burned' his two organs, making them unable to breathe in a few days. The surgery, the first of its kind in Europe, was performed by the doctors of the Polyclinic of Milan, under the coordination of the National Transplant Center, with the Regional Transplant Center and the Northern Italy transplant program.
Francesco, this is the boy's name, began to have a fever on March 2 and on March 6 he was hospitalized in intensive care at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. Two days later he is intubated and on March 23 he is connected to the Ecmo machine for extracorporeal circulation.
But now his lungs are irreparably compromised, and in mid-April the doctors of San Raffaele, confronting those of the Polyclinic, decide to try to give him new lungs. Something that has never been tried before, except in a few rare cases in China (and in a single case in Vienna, carried out a few days after the Milan intervention carried out on May 18). Thus the doctors plan the strategy and the National Transplant Center also sets in motion.
The boy was placed on an urgent waiting list on April 30, and less than two weeks ago the long-awaited turning point: a suitable organ was identified, donated by a dead person in another Region and negative to the coronavirus.
