Surgeons at a Toronto hospital announced that they have used a new technique to repair injured donor lungs and successfully transplant them into a patient. As many as 90 % of donated lungs have to be discarded as they are damaged due to their fragile nature which makes lung transplants a tricky affair.

Unlike the older technique where the lungs were stored on ice till they were needed, in the new technique the doctors keep the lungs functioning at body temperature in a bubble like ventilation unit outside the donor's body. Currently only 15 % of donor lungs are healthy enough to be transplanted and the success of this technique will help ensure that many more people in need of lung transplants would be able to get them in time.

Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, director of the lung transplant program at Toronto General Hospital, led the research team that developed the "ex vivo" procedure said, "To see these lungs that are damaged and 12 hours later are perfect is fascinating. Worldwide, this strategy could easily double the number of lung transplants that are done . . . It's a phenomenally exciting advance."

"In this technique, we're able to set up the situation where the lung can start to recover already from the injuries that had been inflicted on it in the donor and start to recover and work better. More importantly, we can actually monitor that and prove that the lung is better before we transplant it."

The Toronto XVIVO Perfusion System has a see-through chamber with a retractable lid for housing the lungs, and has been nicknamed the "little Sky- Dome" because of its resemblance to Toronto's Rogers Centre. In the unit a ventilator pumps in oxygen while a bloodless solution provides nutrients and proteins to the organs. Under the earlier system the lungs could be kept for 6-8 hours before being transplanted while under this technique they can be kept for at least 12 hours.

Keshavjee said, "What we're doing now is using strategies of regenerative medicine to say, well, can we actually not shut the organ down, but keep it alive, keep it so it's working, so its regenerative properties which are natural in the organ to recover from the injury can actually be working while the organ's outside the body?"

This breakthrough has another benefit as it allows the surgeons to make the donated organs compatible with the donor's body while outside the body and in the long term could make the usage of immune-suppressant drugs which are used to prevent the body rejecting the transplanted organ, redundant.

Andy Dykstra, 56, the first patient to receive a reconditioned pair of lungs from the Toronto team, said "It's a whole new life. I can breath easier. I'm more full of life. I'm just a changed person."

Dr. Robert Levy, medical director of lung transplants for B. C. Transplant said, "It's very innovative. The worldwide transplant community is really watching this with a great deal of interest."