Thoracic surgery

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.

Figures from the thoracic surgery department at UZ Leuven show that the quality of oesophageal operations is improving year on year. Particularly the number of complications after the operation has considerably decreased. On 1/07 2019, UZ Leuven was recognised as a centre of expertise for oesophageal surgery by RIZIV.