The world's first double lung transplant with the help of a robot was performed in New York: how it happened
Kyiv • UNN
Cheryl Merkar, a 57-year-old physician, became the first patient to receive a lung transplant using a robot. Instead of making a large incision, the surgeons made several small ones, which will significantly speed up recovery.
New York physician Cheryl Merkar has become the world's first patient to undergo the first-ever double lung transplant using a robot, UNN reports citing Reuters.
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The procedure is a complement to other minimally invasive procedures and is aimed at speeding up the healing process and reducing the length of hospital stay.
Merkar has always been an active person.
In addition to her work as an emergency medical technician, she is a motorcycle enthusiast and owns a karate school with her husband.
But for more than 10 years, Merkar had been suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which only worsened after the COVID attack. The 57-year-old remembers the moment she realized she had a problem.
"I remember I had to take a call in a nursing home as an ambulance paramedic, and an 85-year-old guard climbed the stairs better than I did. And I knew it was not good," she said.
The woman spent years searching for help before NYU Langone Medical Center informed her that she was eligible for a lung transplant.
"I knew I needed a double lung transplant. And as soon as I was put on the list, I thought: okay, I have a few more months. And five days later I got a call. They said they had a 98% match. And when can you come? And my first reaction was: "Oh my God, you know what. I'll be there in two hours.
Merkar went under the knife at New York University Langone on October 22.
During the procedure, a team of doctors worked in tandem with the robot, removing diseased lungs, preparing the implantation site, and then implanting the donor lungs.
"With a conventional transplant, you either have a very large incision on both sides of the chest, called a thoracotomy, or you just have a very large incision across the chest where we break the sternum... And either way, you need to insert these big retractors that push your ribs apart. They put pressure on your nerves. And it's just a big open incision. And so pain tends to become a serious problem for patients afterwards. In terms of robotic transplantation, instead of making an incision about eight inches, we can make an incision of two inches, and so on, we set up small ports for the robot, so the chest wall gets much less trauma," one of the doctors points out.
Less than a month after the surgery, Merkar was up and walking around the hospital.
"When I walk, I don't need oxygen. And I can breathe. And sometimes my legs get a little tired, but at least I can still breathe. So it's amazing what it does for me," the woman said.
While recuperating, Merkar had time to reflect on what it means to be the first in the world.
"Cheryl, we were able to make both lungs robotic. You were the first in the world." When you hear something like that, I don't know how to describe it, that's 8 billion people, and I was the first person to have it done," she said.
Now, a few days before her discharge, she is focused on those who helped her, including her organ donor: "All I know is that he was a young man. That's all I know. When you think about it, that the family is grieving, and two weeks later I'm breathing his lungs. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. It gave me my life back.
