At the Sheba Tel Hashomer Government Hospital, two unprecedented transplants were recently performed in Israel.
In one case, a lung transplant was successfully performed in corona patients who were not in a serious condition of the disease and came for surgery from his home.
In another case, it was transplanted into a lung patient who was taken, for the first time in the country, from coronary heart disease, whose organs were donated by his family after his brain death was determined.
The lung transplant from Corona patients was performed in Sheba on the night between Friday and Saturday.
The lung was implanted in the body of a patient with chronic lung disease, whose condition deteriorated rapidly and severely.
The lung was taken from the body of a 40-year-old from the north of the country, who in January this year fell ill in Corona and recovered.
After his brain death was determined at the Galilee Government Hospital in Nahariya, his family agreed to donate his organs.
Since the outbreak, organ transplants from corona patients have raised serious concerns around the world, for fear of transmitting the virus through the transplanted organ.
However, Dr. Liran Levy, the medical director of the Sheba Lung Transplant System, says that the organ donor who was suffering from corona had thorough tests, which showed that he did not carry the virus in his body, that he had no signs of the virus, and that he had no tissue damage or damage. Lung candidate for transplant.
According to Dr. Levy, the transplant recipient is recovering and recovering so far as expected from the transplant.
"After I received my first vaccine in January, I fell ill with corona, my condition deteriorated, and I was transferred to intensive care in Sheba," says Haim Zehavi, 64, the first corona in the country to undergo a lung transplant last August in Sheba.
"After that, I went to the respiratory rehabilitation ward and was already discharged from the hospital, but the main problem was that I had a lung disease, and along with the virus it wiped out my lungs. I was released home with an external oxygen supply, and I was very weak."
He said, "Already after the hospitalization in the intensive care unit, I met Dr. Levy, and I began to find out the possibility of a transplant.
Three weeks after I entered the national list of lung transplant candidates, Dr. Levy called and updated that there were suitable lungs for me. Since the transplant I have been undergoing not simple, but much more optimistic rehabilitation.
Before the transplant I could not do almost anything on my own.
Since then I have been doing things I never dreamed of. "He added:" My wife's part was critical in the lung transplant and rehabilitation process. In the evening to Tel Hashomer, the next day I had two excellent lungs, and now I am at home, without an oxygen mask - coming back to life. '
Struggle between hospitals
We emphasize that so far these transplants have been performed in Israel only for corona patients who were in a serious condition due to the collapse of the lungs and were continuously connected for months to an Acmo machine (artificial heart-lung).
This is the case with the first lung transplant in Israel in a severe corona patient, which was performed last February.
In the same patient, 56 years old from the north of the country, the lung donation was from First Sergeant Jonathan Granot, 22, who was killed by gunfire from another soldier.
His mother, Tal Granot, a nurse at Beilinson Hospital, agreed to donate his organs for transplant.
Sheba lung transplants take place after an extraordinary and unprecedented struggle over the prestige of hospitals, over different medical and ethical approaches.
This while raising unprecedented mutual accusations between two of the largest and most powerful hospitals in Israel: Beilinson in Petah Tikva;
Where in recent years all lung transplants have been performed in Israel;
And on the other hand Sheba, who demanded approval for him to run a lung transplant program.
As part of the confrontation, which was exposed in Israel Today in October, senior Beilinson doctors told the Ministry of Health that there was too great a risk in approving lung transplants in Corona patients, but the ministry approved these transplants in Sheba.
The Sheba Lung Transplant Program was launched in March 2020, and the first transplant was performed six months later, in December.
Since then, 14 lung transplants have been performed in Sheba, including a first-of-its-kind transplant in a 14-year-old boy who was held for a long time on Acmo due to severe lung injury secondary to the chemotherapy he received;
Three first corona patients in Israel with irreversible lung injury;
And transplantation of a 76-year-old patient, the oldest ever transplanted in Israel.
More transplant candidates
Sheba's transplant program is run by Dr. Liran Levy, a lung transplant specialist, and Dr. Milton Sauta, a breast surgeon who specializes in lung transplants with experience in more than 700 lung transplants at Beilinson Hospital.
"Since the outbreak of the corona, we have witnessed many cases of significant and destructive damage to the corona in lung function to the point of complete destruction," Dr. Levy told Israel Today. .
Unfortunately, we are witnessing a significant number of people who have become candidates for lung transplants following the corona.
In the case in question, the patient did not suffer from lung disease in the past, but the corona hit him so badly that he became a candidate for a transplant. "
Dr. Milton Sauta, the surgical director of the Sheba Lung Transplant Program, added in an interview with Israel Today that "thanks to the experience we have accumulated, the team we have formed and partnerships with the world's leading lung transplant centers, we are also able to treat extreme cases."
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health recently approved Sheba to perform lung transplants on children, as so far these transplants have been performed in Israel only at the Schneider Center for Pediatrics, near Beilinson.
