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Surgeons at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago successfully transplanted both lungs from a COVID-19 survivor into a man whose own lungs had been irreversibly ravaged by the disease, officials at the Northwestern University-affiliated health system said Friday.

The procedure was performed in February, a week after the recipient -- described only as a man in his 60s who first developed COVID-19 in May 2020 -- was placed on the transplant waiting list. Officials gave no information about the donor, except that the person had recovered from an earlier bout with mild to moderate COVID-19.

The transplant team tested fluid from the donor lungs to ensure there was no viable virus present, as Northwestern had done in 13 previous double-lung procedures. This one, however, was the first to involve a donor known to have previously had COVID-19.

That it appears successful has broader implications, team members emphasized.

"To date, 30 million Americans have had COVID-19 and many of them are registered organ donors," said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director for Northwestern's lung transplant program, in a press release. "If we say 'no' to them just because they had COVID-19 in the past, we will drastically reduce the donor pool and there's already a big supply and demand gap. We will have a massive problem on our hands if Americans can't donate their organs after having a mild to moderate case of COVID-19."

According to another Northwestern transplant specialist, Michael Ison, MD, "Current consensus guidelines are that donors with a history of COVID-19 can be used for organ transplantation as long as they have clinically recovered and have negative testing. But currently, many transplant centers are worried about the risk of transmission of COVID-19 from donors, particularly for lung transplants, and are unnecessarily discarding these organs. This donor clarifies the safety of the use of these donors."

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