Cancer treatment
Successful patient outcomes due to lung freeze
TADD Crosslin – Mansfield, Texas
TADD Crosslin, Mansfield, Texas (located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area), underwent a double lung transplant at the Northwestern Memorial on September 23, 2024. (Cody and Blake) was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in 2016 at the age of 40 and advanced to stage 4 by 2019.
While undergoing chemotherapy and surgery, Croslin's medical team noticed that the pulmonary nodules had formed, but told her not to worry. Soon, the pulmonary nodules began to grow and he caused difficulty breathing as Croslin had hundreds of tumors in his lungs.
“I have traveled to major health systems in Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey, New York and even Germany, looking for a second opinion, and they all have nothing to do. I was saying that,” Crosslin said. “Giving up has never been an option for me. Northwest medicine does not shy away from exploring new techniques and techniques. Without them, I would not be here today.”
On September 23, Croslin received her new lungs, but the surgery was not easy. His explants were very difficult because there were so many tumors and extensive cancers in Croslin's old lungs (Please see this photo).
“Having a fridge was a game-changer for lung transplant surgery for TADD,” added Dr. Bharat. “His sick lungs were fused so firmly to his thoracic cavity, so we continued to need more time to remove them. We'll make his new lungs worse. We were unable to do so, so we were able to store them in the fridge until we were ready to implant them.”
Double Lung Exchange and Interdisciplinary Care (Dream) Program It is Northwest Medicine's first clinical initiative, offering double lung transplants to select patients with advanced lung cancer who are not responding to traditional treatments. To date, more than 40 patients have undergone double lung transplants through their dream program.
