Okayama University Hospital successfully conducts lung transplant surgery from brain-dead donor to Japan’s youngest recipient

Surgeons at Okayama University Hospital successfully transplanted both lungs donated from a boy younger than six who had been declared brain dead, into a one-year old girl.

The surgery started shortly after nine o’clock in the morning on May 11th and was successfully completed after about six and a half hours at around three thirty in the afternoon. The girl is expected to be released from the hospital in about two months. Her parents said, “We think that the donated lungs will live on with our daughter. We hope she will grow big and enjoy the boy’s share of life together with them.”

Professor Takahiro Oto of the Okayama University Hospital Transplantation Center, who performed the surgical procedure, said, “I am relieved that we could continue the patient’s life, linking it with the precious life of the boy who died and the wishes of his family.”

Previously, the youngest lung transplant patient in Japan was a two year old boy who received parts of a lung from a living donor in September 2014; this surgery was also performed by Professor Takahiro Oto.

Further information
Okayama University (English page)
http://www.okayama-u.ac.jp/eng/news/index_id6774.html
Okayama University (Japanese page)
http://www.okayama-u.ac.jp/tp/news/news_id6701.html