A 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl received a new set of lungs yesterday after winning a federal court battle that sparked a national debate over transplanting adult organs into children.
Sarah Murnaghan, a cystic fibrosis victim, underwent six hours of surgery at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where doctors gave her adult lungs.
“Her doctors are very pleased with both her progress during the procedure and her prognosis for recovery,” Sarah’s family said in a statement.
Sarah received new lungs after she and her co-plaintiff, 11-year-old Bronx boy Javier Acosta, challenged national transplant policies that limited them to lung donors under 12.
Philadelphia federal Judge Michael Baylson sided with the kids on June 5, opening the door for yesterday’s procedure.
“The surgeons had no challenges resizing and transplanting the donor lungs. The surgery went smoothly, and Sarah did extremely well,” the family said.
They told Tuesday night that donor lungs were on the way.
“Right now, we feel like we have a chance, a hope,” mom Janet Ruddock Murnaghan said. “My hope is that she [Sarah] continues to be a fighter.”
She thanked the donor’s loved ones and acknowledged they “experienced a tremendous loss. May God grant them a peace that surpasses understanding.”
The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network has rules that patients 11 and younger can receive lungs only from other kids, thus making their pool of potential donors much smaller.
Defenders of that policy claim young patients have a much better chance for a successful transplant with lungs of similar size, coming from other kids.
Following last week’s court ruling, the network urged doctors with lung-seeking pediatric patients to re-evaluate their cases.
And if doctors believe their young patients could benefit from adult lungs, they’re urged to . If those doctors believe their pediatric patients could benefit from an adult lung, they were urged to resubmit their cases to local review boards.
Medical ethicist Arthur Caplan of the NYU Langone Medical Center said the Murnaghans had a legitimate demand to seek a greater lung-donor pool.
But Caplan also defended the process that had initially denied Sarah.
“When the transplant community met, they didn’t want to change that rule without really thinking carefully about it,” he said. “In general, the road to a transplant is still to let the system decide who will do best with scarce, lifesaving organs.”
With Post Wire Services