Austrian hospital performs first COVID-19 lung transplant in Europe
Doctors in Austria completed a lung transplant on a COVID-19 patient, the first to be done in Europe, the Medical University of Vienna said in a news release on Monday, according to NBC news report.
The procedure last week at Vienna General Hospital was performed on a 45-year-old woman from the southern state of Carinthia who had developed severe respiratory failure after contracting the virus approximately eight weeks ago, the source said.
Dr. Walter Klepetko, head of the Department of Surgery and the Division of Thoracic Surgery at the Medical University of Vienna, said the patient was previously healthy.
“We are very satisfied with the patient’s condition, given the extremely difficult initial circumstances,” Klepetko said in a statement released by the Medical University of Vienna. “Only a few days after the procedure, the patient is well on the way to recovery.”