(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Northwestern Medicine has broken a record for the number of lung transplants, thanks to new technology to widen the donor pool and shorten patient wait times.
In 2024, Northwestern Medicine performed 148 lung transplants, that's the highest volume for a single year since the lung transplant program began 10 years ago.
Thoracic surgeon Dr. Ankit Bharat says this is partly thanks to new strategies known as "lungs in a box" and "lungs in a fridge."
"We literally take lungs out of a donor, we process them in a particular way, and put them in a fridge at a certain temperature, and they stay alive," Dr. Bharat said.
The method preserves them at the correct temperature for up to 12 hours.
"Prior to that, we were storing them on ice. What we found is the lungs don't do as well on that for an extended period of time."
He says the new method gives surgeons more time to perform the operation on the recipient. Patients have even been able to travel from places such as Germany and the United Kingdom to receive a transplant at Northwestern.
"With that type of preservation we're able to keep the lungs at that temperature for a longer period of time. As a result of that, we've found that the wait times of our recipients at Northwestern has dramatically gone down."
Tadd Crasslin, for example, had looked for treatment for his stage 4 colorectal cancer in multiple states and even Germany before finding Northwestern.
"I'm just glad that there's new technology out there and that Northwestern doesn't shy away from exploring it. And it helped me in this case probably, it's helping me in my recovery today."
Northwestern says it has also achieved the shortest wait time for a lung transplant, with a median wait time of four days.
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