(Correspondent Zou Yaqin) "Doctor, what is my blood oxygen now? What is the oxygen flow rate?" Mr. Wang from Yichang, Hubei Province received a double lung transplant at the Thoracic Surgery Department of Wuhan University People's Hospital (Hubei Provincial People's Hospital). After being removed from ECMO and the ventilator less than 24 hours later, he was able to speak and immediately asked the doctor a series of professional questions.
"The blood oxygen saturation is 100%! It is still high flow (oxygen inhalation) for the time being. We will adjust it at any time according to the recovery situation later." After receiving the doctor's affirmative answer, Mr. Wang's frown finally relaxed. On July 4, he was transferred from the intensive care unit to the general thoracic surgery ward for the next step of rehabilitation treatment.
Mr. Wang from Yichang is only 40 years old, but unfortunately he has been suffering from bronchiectasis, pulmonary fibrosis, emphysema for many years. Various lesions have diffusely changed in both lungs, causing his lung tissue to be almost No breathing function. In the past five years, he could only survive on oxygen at home every day. He would be out of breath if he moved even a little bit, and was completely unable to carry out normal life and work. Long-term hypoxia also continued to consume his body. He was 175 centimeters tall and lost weight to only 45 kilograms.
In the past two years, Mr. Wang had undergone thoracic closed drainage and bullectomy due to an attack of pneumothorax. However, the symptoms of hypoxia are still getting worse. Even when the oxygen intake reaches 5 liters per minute, the blood oxygen saturation can only be maintained at 80%-90%. Once after a cold, it almost dropped to 60%, and his life was in danger. . A normal person's blood oxygen saturation can reach over 98% even without oxygen.
The long-term pain and suffering and the experience of seeking medical treatment made Mr. Wang realize that the only way to survive was a lung transplant. At the beginning of this year, he came to the Thoracic Surgery Department of Wuhan University People's Hospital to seek help from Professor Geng Qing, the director of the department. On April 1, after completing the pre-pulmonary transplant evaluation at the Thoracic Surgery Hospital, Mr. Wang successfully registered in the China Human Organ Allocation and Sharing Computer System and became a recipient waiting for a lung transplant.
Exactly three months later, on the evening of June 30, a message came from the terminal of the China Human Organ Distribution and Sharing Computer System: The lungs donated by a brain-dead patient were successfully matched with Mr. Wang. After receiving the news, Mr. Wang, who had been waiting hard, immediately rushed to the hospital overnight carrying an oxygen bottle to go through the relevant procedures.
On the morning of July 1, the team from the Department of Critical Care Medicine I of Wuhan University People's Hospital installed an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) system on Mr. Wang to temporarily replace his respiratory function. Professor Geng Qing from the Department of Thoracic Surgery led a lung transplant team led by Jiang Wenyang, Zhang Xinghua and others. Under the full escort of the anesthesiology team who performed double-lumen tracheal intubation, Mr. Wang performed a double lung transplant. This thrilling lung transplant operation was successfully completed after nearly 10 hours. Mr. Wang was sent to the intensive care unit for continued treatment after the operation.
htmlAt 9 a.m. on July 2, after examination and evaluation, it was found that the new lungs were functioning normally in Mr. Wang's body, which was enough to maintain his demand for oxygen , and the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) system was successfully removed. At 3 p.m., after re-evaluation, the ventilator was successfully removed and Mr. Wang resumed normal breathing. Mr. Wang, who enjoyed the feeling of normal breathing for the first time in many years, could not help but ask the doctor immediately."What is my current blood oxygen saturation? What is the oxygen flow rate?" Mr. Wang, who has been a doctor for a long time, knows the importance of these two indicators. After learning that everything was normal, he quickly sent a selfie video to his mother and brother who were waiting anxiously outside the intensive care unit, telling them that he felt fine after the lung transplant and that he hoped they wouldn't worry.
Professor Geng Qing said that lung transplantation is the only way to treat chronic end-stage lung disease. It is also accompanied by high risks and difficulty of the operation, making it the "jewel in the crown" of thoracic surgery. The Thoracic Surgery Department of Wuhan University People's Hospital (Hubei Provincial People's Hospital) has successfully performed lung transplants on dozens of patients with chronic end-stage lung disease since it launched lung transplant operations in 2016.
