Belarus performs world’s second sublobar lung autotransplantation

A unique sublobar lung transplant surgery has been performed at the thoracic surgery and lung transplantation department of the National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Center of Belarus, BelTA learnt from chief of the department Sergei Yeskov.

“This is a landmark event. We have been the second in the world to conduct this surgery. The first one was reported to be performed by Japanese surgeons in March 2012,” Sergei Yeskov said.

The surgery took place on 1 February. The patient was a 58-year old man. “We faced an extraordinary situation. The patient had a tumor in the left proximal bronchus that started spreading across the distal bronchus. In such cases pneumonectomy is usually performed to remove the entire lung. However, our patient had a tumor in his right lung. Therefore, we could not remove his left lung. The lung was recovered, the affected superior lobe and the sixth segment of the inferior lobe were removed; after that we implanted what was left from the inferior lobe into the pleural cavity,” Sergei Yeskov said.

He noted that the biggest challenge was a significant size difference in the correlated bronchi, while the pulmonary artery resembled patches containing entrances of segmental arteries. “We had to bring them together and sew them into the pulmonary artery. The vein was sewed in right into the heart,” he said.

The surgery lasted about six hours. It was conducted by a team of nine specialists of the center. The patient’s condition is satisfactory. “He already walks and talks with other patients,” the specialist said.

Belarus’ first thoracic surgery and lung transplantation department opened in Minsk Teaching Hospital No. 9 in November 2012. The department has 20 beds. The major objectives of the department are to assimilate new technologies, develop a nation-wide lung transplantation program, and conduct surgeries to transplant lungs. The first lung transplant surgery is to be conducted here in the first half of 2013. The center examines patients who need transplant surgeries and puts them on the waiting list. Every year about 50 people need lung transplantation in Belarus.

Belarus ranks first in the CIS in terms of organ transplant surgeries. In 2012 some 274 transplant surgeries were performed in Belarus. The number of transplant surgeries per one million people in Belarus stands at 29. To compare, the figure in Russia is 9.1 and 2.2 in Ukraine.