Double liver and lung transplant, life-saving surgery for 16 years old

In Naples his family celebrated him with fireworks: the 16-year-old boy, suffering from cystic fibrosis, returned home for Christmas, who last October was subjected to a double liver and lung transplant. The disease, which affects the lungs, has affected other organs such as the liver and pancreas. And when the disease worsens, the transplant of one or more organs involved is the only possible cure. The boy’s condition was really critical when a suitable donor was made available for lung and liver removal. It is the first combined lung and liver transplant performed entirely by the specialists of the Child Jesus. The operation lasted a total of 22 hours; if we also add the sampling procedures carried out in the donor’s hospital – explains a note from the Child Jesus – it took more than 36 hours. Several teams involved: cardiac surgeons, liver transplant surgeons, cardioanesthesiologists and cardiorianimators, anesthetists and resuscitators of liver transplantation, pulmonologists, pediatricians, hepatologists, cardiologists, instrumentalists in cardiac surgery and liver transplantation, transplant coordination nurses, nursing staff of the cardiac resuscitation, radiology technicians and radiologists, laboratory technicians and biologists, drivers and socio-health workers. In total more than 40 professionals. Followed in the Cystic Fibrosis Center of Naples since 2016, due to the progressive worsening of his condition, the boy was taken in care by the Cystic Fibrosis Center of the Child Jesus in view of a transplant program. And last March, he was placed on the waiting list for a combined lung and liver transplant. The wait for the sixteen-year-old was long, with a progressive worsening of his respiratory conditions which led, at the end of September, to an urgent hospitalization in intensive care, with the need for intubation and mechanical ventilation. Until an available donor was finally found. After the long and complex operation, the young patient was transferred to cardiac resuscitation and later to the cystic fibrosis ward: 54 days after the transplant he returned home, where he was welcomed with fireworks by family members. “Today I can say that miracles exist – comments the boy’s mother – At Christmas 2020 we began the journey to the Child Jesus with the only, but uncertain, prospect of a transplant to save my son’s life. Having him at home with me today it is the greatest and most unexpected Christmas present. I would like to thank all the doctors and operators of the Child Jesus for their professionalism and humanity and, above all, for having believed with us, and sometimes more than us, that my son could return to live “. “None of the exceptional results achieved and of which we are really proud – underlines Mariella Enoc, president of the Child Jesus – would ever be possible without the generosity of donors and their families, called to the most altruistic of choices in the deepest moment of personal suffering. their availability is the indispensable element for organ transplantation, which in Italy treats more than 3,000 patients every year “.