Two persons with stage 4 lung cancer who were told they had only weeks or months to live are now breathing freely after getting double lung transplants, according to Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.
In the United States, lung cancer is the biggest cause of cancer-related deaths. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 127,000 People will die from cancer this year.
Patients Survive Stage 4 Lung Cancer
Albert Khoury, 55, from Chicago, was diagnosed with lung cancer in early 2020. His malignancies were first localized in only one lung. Nevertheless, the cancer had progressed to the other lung despite two rounds of chemotherapy. That was the fourth stage.
Khoury, on the other hand, will be the first person with stage 4 cancer to have a double lung transplant in September 2021. Tannaz Ameli, 65, was the second patient to get the experimental treatment after her disease spread to both lungs.
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Clinical Trial Called DREAM
Surgeons can considerably limit the chance of cancer cells contaminating the replacement organs or other areas of the body by removing both diseased lungs from the body at the same time and replacing them with two healthy transplanted lungs. Patients are hooked up to a heart-lung bypass machine to keep them alive while their lungs are removed.
The strategy does not apply to all patients with stage 4 cancer, but only to those whose disease has migrated from one lung to the other but not beyond that.
Northwestern Medicine’s Double Lung Replacement and Multidisciplinary Care, or DREAM, the program intends to track the first 75 cancer patients who have a double-lung transplant. They believe that what they learn from these patients will help other surgery facilities perform the treatment as well in the long run.
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