Man who received nation's first 'breathing lung' transplant at UCLA thankful for gift of life
UCLA News
Grandfather, 57, looks forward to celebrating Easter with family and friends
Fernando Padilla could barely breathe or walk more than a few steps. An incurable disease, pulmonary fibrosis, was causing his lungs to turn to hardened scar tissue, and he was permanently tethered to an oxygen tank. His only hope was a double lung transplant.
In November 2012, he got an early-morning call that a pair of donor lungs was available.
Upon arriving at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, he was told of a new study testing an experimental device â€" a portable organ-preservation system that keeps donor lungs functioning and "breathing" in a near-physiologic state outside the body during transport to a recipient, instead of the standard method, in which the organs are kept in an icebox in a non-functioning, non-breathing state.
Padilla consented to participate in the study and was randomized to become the first patient at UCLA â€" and in the United States â€" to undergo the 'breathing lung' transplant using the TransMedics Organ Care System (OCS).
"If they've got new technology to deliver the lungs still breathing, I think that would be better than trying to wake them back up again after being on ice," said the former construction worker, who had helped build the very same hospital where he was now a patient. "I'm just following technology."
With the OCS, the lungs are removed from a donor's body and are placed in a mobile high-tech box, where they are immediately revived to a warm, breathing state and perfused with oxygen and a special solution supplemented with packed red-blood cells. The device also features monitors that display how the lungs are functioning during transport.
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{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
Grandfather, 57, looks forward to celebrating Easter with family and friends
Fernando Padilla could barely breathe or walk more than a few steps. An incurable disease, pulmonary fibrosis, was causing his lungs to turn to hardened scar tissue, and he was permanently tethered to an oxygen tank. His only hope was a double lung transplant.
In November 2012, he got an early-morning call that a pair of donor lungs was available.
Upon arriving at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, he was told of a new study testing an experimental device â€" a portable organ-preservation system that keeps donor lungs functioning and "breathing" in a near-physiologic state outside the body during transport to a recipient, instead of the standard method, in which the organs are kept in an icebox in a non-functioning, non-breathing state.
Padilla consented to participate in the study and was randomized to become the first patient at UCLA â€" and in the United States â€" to undergo the 'breathing lung' transplant using the TransMedics Organ Care System (OCS).
"If they've got new technology to deliver the lungs still breathing, I think that would be better than trying to wake them back up again after being on ice," said the former construction worker, who had helped build the very same hospital where he was now a patient. "I'm just following technology."
With the OCS, the lungs are removed from a donor's body and are placed in a mobile high-tech box, where they are immediately revived to a warm, breathing state and perfused with oxygen and a special solution supplemented with packed red-blood cells. The device also features monitors that display how the lungs are functioning during transport.
Continue reading
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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