A 57-year-old woman with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has undergone the world’s first entirely robotic double lung transplant.
Dr. Stephanie Chang at NYU Langone Health in New York City performed the pioneering surgery in October. Notably, Dr. Chang had also completed the country’s first entirely robotic single lung transplant just a month earlier.
WATCH: ‘This is huge’: Cheryl Mehrkar, 57, is the world’s first recipient of a fully robotic double lung transplant at the NYU Langone Health Center pic.twitter.com/q1VcUSmeSS
— Reuters Science News (@ReutersScience) November 21, 2024“This latest innovation marks a pivotal moment in lung transplantation surgery worldwide and heralds the dawn of a new era in patient care,” stated Dr. Ralph Mosca, chair of cardiothoracic surgery at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Dr. Chang and her team utilized the da Vinci Xi robot for these minimally invasive transplants. They made small incisions between the ribs to remove and replace the damaged lungs.
The historic double transplant took place on October 22, just four days after Cheryl Mehrkar was added to the transplant list following months of meticulous evaluation.
“For a long time, I was told I wasn’t sick enough for a transplant,” Mehrkar recalled in an NYU news release.
Expressing her gratitude, Mehrkar added, “I’m so grateful to the donor and their family, and I’m so grateful to the doctors and nurses here for giving me hope.”
