Thoracic surgery

Surgeons at UZ Leuven have developed a new transplant technique in which they use strong connective tissue from the abdominal wall of a deceased donor for patients with tissue defects throughout the body. Notably, these abdominal wall transplants are being performed for the first time without immunosuppressive medication.

A COVID-19 patient on the intensive care ward with irreparably damaged lungs was given new lungs on 1 Januari 2021 in the UZ Leuven transplant centre. It is the first time in the Benelux that someone on an intensive care COVID-19 ward gets a lung transplant.

In a world’s first, the UZ Leuven lung transplant team has performed a double lung transplant with the lungs of a donor who experienced a mild case of COVID-19 three months prior. The procedure shows that carefully selected lungs can safely be transplanted after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.