Michigan lung transplant recipient dies of COVID-19 spread through donor lungs

DETROIT – With careful screening, organ transplants are still performed in the COVID-19 era.

However, doctors are learning more about how the disease can escape detection on a daily basis.

A Michigan woman tragically died of COVID-19 due to a lung transplant that was supposed to save her life.

Lung transplants are still being done. In fact, a lung transplant can save the life of someone whose lungs were destroyed by COVID-19.

In cases unrelated to COVID-19, both the donor and the recipient are routinely examined to ensure they are free of infection, but a new case highlights the need for more advanced screening. Last year, nearly 40,000 organs were transplanted in the United States, with more than 2,500 being lung transplants, about the same number that was done in previous years.

Now, a new report from the University of Michigan published in the American Journal of Transplantation describes the first case of COVID-19 that was transmitted in a pair of lungs.

Ads

Coronavirus in Michigan: Here’s what you should know on February 22, 2021

The donor was a woman who suffered a severe brain injury in a car accident. She had no history of COVID-19 or any symptoms such as fever, cough or headache and, before obtaining organs, she had a nasal smear that was negative for the COVID-19 virus.

The woman who received the donated lungs had end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and was also negative for the COVID-19 virus.

Three days after the lung transplant, she developed fevers and worsened lung function. A CT scan of his new lungs looked like COVID.

Even though the donor’s nasal smear was negative for COVID, they tested positive when they returned and tested their original lung lavages.

During the initial procedure, doctors believed that both the donor and the recipient were free of COVID and therefore were not required to wear an N-95 mask or eye protection.

Ads

The thoracic surgeon who performed the transplant had a positive result four days after surgery. Sixty-one days after the transplant, the recipient died.

TO VIEW: Michigan dose tracking of COVID-19 vaccine 💉

In studying what happened, the donor, recipient and surgeon viruses were all subjected to genetic sequencing.

The coronavirus in the donor and recipient were identical. In addition, the surgeon’s virus was essentially identical, only different because of a mutation thought to have occurred during his infection.

It is unclear whether the virus can be transmitted by other organ transplants, but donor COVID screening has been done since the beginning of the pandemic and, specifically for non-pulmonary donors, they recommend at least one sample from the respiratory tract.

Ads