Lung cancer doctor receives unprecedented liver and double lung transplant from Chicago’s Northwestern Hospital

Chicago — It’s an unconventional medical story. Northwestern surgeons have successfully performed a combined lung and liver transplant on a patient with advanced lung cancer.

And the patient himself is a doctor.

Dr. Gary Gibbon, a pulmonologist, usually listens to other people’s lungs rather than his own.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

The sound was very different from a year ago, when doctors in Santa Monica, Calif., diagnosed him with stage 3 lung cancer. After undergoing chemotherapy, radiation therapy and immunotherapy at the University of California, Los Angeles, Gibbon learned that the treatments had caused irreparable damage to both of his lungs as well as his liver.

“Sadly and horrifyingly, we were told that there was no other option and that we should consider palliative care or hospice care,” Gibbon said.

Then his wife remembered hearing about Northwestern Medical School’s double lung replacement program on the news. dream program.

“We put him on a plane, took a medical flight here, and took a four-hour flight from California to Chicago,” said Dr. Satish Nadig, director of Northwestern Medicine Transplant Center.

Within 12 days of being on the transplant list, two lungs and one liver from one donor became available. Doctors say patients in the most serious condition will be prioritized.

“Generally speaking, the more serious the disease, the higher up the list you rank. So Dr. Gibbon was sick as well,” he said.

Related item: Lung cancer patient discharged from Northwestern Medicine Hospital after lung transplant

After the team procured the organs, Gibbon underwent what would become a historic operation.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, this is substandard and has never been done before,” Nadig said.

This was a first for a cancer patient with advanced cancer. As expected, the surgery to remove all cancer cells from the chest cavity and airway and replace the diseased lung lasted late into the night.

“So the question was, how do we keep the liver alive until we can complete part of the double lung transplant surgery,” said Dr. Ankit Bharat of Northwestern Medicine’s Canning Thoracic Institute. states.

The researchers used a perfusion device to pump blood at body temperature into the liver, keeping it alive for 17 hours. This is enough time for the surgeon to complete three implants.

“All three of us knew at the time that we had rewritten the textbooks of medical history,” Nadig said.

Six months after groundbreaking liver and lung surgery, the gibbon is cancer-free.

He is celebrating his 69th birthday and is newly married.

Remarkable medical achievements were made possible only thanks to the awareness of organ donors.

“I would like to express my gratitude to the donor and family for the gift of life,” Gibbon said.