Surgeons are generally reluctant to perform this type of transplant, because the risk of relapse, in a patient who must take immunosuppressive drugs to prevent transplant rejection, is very high if there is even few cancer cells in the body. The first few surgeries of this kind failed, but doctors now know more regarding how cancers spread.
Albert Khoury’s symptoms appeared in early 2020: back pain, sneezing, chills, cough… This Chicago construction worker first thought it was Covid-19, before starting to cough blood and call his doctor. Tests reveal stage 1 cancer. “But because of the wave of Covid-19, I might not start treatment immediately”, he says in a press release. In July 2020, his cancer had worsened, at stage 2. And the chemotherapy did not prevent it from progressing further, at stages 3 then 4.
He had been told that he would not survive it, when his sister told him regarding lung transplants at Northwestern Medicine Hospital, a pioneer in this field. In 2020, a team led by surgeon Ankit Bharat had already performed a double transplant on a young woman whose lungs had been ravaged by Covid-19.
