Lung transplant?

[peebygeeby]

Hey everybody,

Well, here's something kind of crazy, but I thought I would run it by you all.

Had a conversation with Hanks sister the other day. She told me that she would be willing to give Hank one of her lungs. My response to her was that they would never do that because his cancer has already spread. I mentioned this conversation to a friend of mine who is a nurse practitioner. She said that she really did'nt know if they would do it or not. She said that insurance would certainly not cover it, but, being that it is an organ being donated by a family member to a family member, if I could pay for it myself, maybe it was something worth discussing with the doctors. Can I pay for it if it were doable? I would come with the money one way or another.

Any thoughts?

All the best,

Gail

[Connie B]

Nope they won't do transplants on a lung cancer patient. I had this talk several times with many different doctor's even at Mayo and it's totally not doable. Not to mention it's a very complicated transplant. Money isn't this issue. Lung transplants don't always work well in healthy people. I was told they would rather do a Heart & lung transplant over just doing a lung transplant. But lung cancer patients are out of the question. I do understand why that is though.

I also talked to my heart & lung team at the U of M about this in January of this year after I had my open heart surgery and again they said not an option. There are many many many many reason's as to why they don't.

[LovesLife]

Gail - I did read of a gentleman who has Stage IV BAC who has had two lung transplants - it can be read at http://bovsbac.blogspotcom. That is the only one I know of Gail. Don't know if that is helpful at all or not.

Linda

[shellit74]

Gail,

I would tend to agree with Connie, only on the basis that they wouldnt even consider removing the tumor in Dads lung, much less a transplant because of the metastic nature of the cancer. I am sorry that there is not better news regarding this, but anything that gives you a little hope is worth researching. Do NOT give up hope Gail!!

Shelli

[RandyW]

1) http://www.lungusa.org/site/c.dvLUK9O0E ... plants.htm

2) http://www.mayoclinic.org/lung-transplant/

For the care giver

1) http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc. ... 10234&cn=5

2) http://www.chestnet.org/about/links/lungTransplant.php

I am not sure how I would feel about this subject but those are some facts and Info to read about if truly interested!

[CaroleHammett]

Gail:

I agree with Shelli. Because of metastasis in Stages III and IV, they won't even approve lung or lobe removal surgery beyond Stage I or II (all studies show that surgery provides no improvement in survival rate for those of us whose lung cancer has metastasized).

As to the BAC patient who's had two lung transplants, (1) note that he had to have the second because it came back after the first; and (2) note that BAC is a unique sub-type of NSCLC and treated somewhat differently than adenocarcinoma, squamous cell, etc.

Carole

[Welthy]

Ditto here about later stages and transplants. My husband's surgeon was doing some experimental transplants for BAC patients at the time he was diagnosed and I hammered him about this issue too. Same answers as the others have given. Darn it.

Hugs,

Welthy