Dear Respiratory friends we are congratulating everybody with wonderful anniversary of the first successful lung transplant!!!
Last year alone, 1,754 lung transplants were performed throughout the
U.S., according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
Yet not long ago, lung transplantation was regarded as one of thoracic
surgery's great unsolved challenges. "It was thought that the bronchus
might just be the Achilles' heel of transplantation, and it just was an
insoluble problem," says Joel D. Cooper, MD, 74, from his office at the
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Monica Assenheimer (from left), the second single-lung recipient,
Tom Hall, the world’s first single-lung recipient, and Ann Harrison,
the world’s first double-lung recipient. The University of Toronto will
celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first successful lung transplant
and honor Dr. Cooper at a ceremony Nov. 6.
Photo Courtesy of University of Toronto’s Living History project, livinghistory.med.utoronto.ca.
Photo Courtesy of University of Toronto’s Living History project, livinghistory.med.utoronto.ca.
After participating in the 44th failed attempt in the late 1970s, Dr.
Cooper retreated to his lab at University of Toronto. With the support
of his colleagues and a number of research fellows from around the
world, they conducted a series of wound-healing experiments in dogs that
uncovered the culprit: high doses of the immunosuppressant drug
prednisone interfered with the healing process. Using omentum and
cyclosporin (both experimental at the time), Dr. Cooper and his team
completed the first successful lung transplant in 1983 on a 58-year-old
Canadian hardware executive and pulmonary fibrosis patient Tom Hall, and
the procedure was reproducible.
"When everybody failed, Joel never gave up on making the dream of
lung transplantation a reality," says Shaf Keshavjee, MD, surgeon in
chief at (Toronto) University Heath Network and director of the Toronto
Lung Transplant Program, which Dr. Cooper initiated. "Thousands of lung
patients are alive because of Joel's contributions."
November marks the 30th anniversary of the first successful
single-lung transplant, but it's hardly Dr. Cooper's only contribution
to thoracic surgery and medicine. Dr. Cooper, a professor of surgery at
Penn and an ATS member since 1976, directed the first successful
double-lung transplants in 1986 and 1987, and later the bilateral,
sequential, single-lung transplantation procedure to treat cystic
fibrosis, emphysema and pulmonary hypertension.
When asked how he felt about his legacy of solving a great thoracic
mystery, Dr. Cooper humbly answers, "We put the icing on the cake that
other people had spent years and years baking. I think it was Isaac
Newton coined the aphorism, 'if we see further, it's because we stand on
the shoulders of giants.' Nothing, I think, typifies that more than the
transplant."
At the Kidney Transplant Network we assist those individuals worldwide who need a transplant. This includes Kidney,Liver, Heart, Stomach, and Lung Transplants. This is accomplished by pro-actively going out in the “general public” and locating those individuals who want to donate an organ. Thru collective efforts we utilize cutting edge technology,Social Media, Referrals, Networking, Non-Profit Organizations, Private & Public Hospitals, Clinics, Hospices, and private donors. Kidney Transplant Network focus is to pro-actively contact those individuals who are interested in donating an organ. You can change a "Life" thru donation so start today!!
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