What is involved in lung transplant surgery?
Once an organ becomes available to a patient, he or she will be immediately called to the hospital. This call can occur at any time, so one should always be prepared to go to the hospital if needed. Once at the hospital, the patient will have some more final blood work and tests to confirm the match of the organ. The patient will then go to the operating room. The transplant surgery may require from six to twelve hours, but can vary greatly depending on the type of surgery and on each individual case. Single lung transplantation is performed with the patient under general anesthesia. It is not always necessary to have cardiopulmonary bypass (re-routing of the blood through a heart-lung bypass machine) with a single lung transplant. However, if two separate lungs are transplanted, cardiopulmonary bypass is often necessary. Heart-lung transplants always require the use of cardiopulmonary bypass.
