Carlsbad Woman’s Lung Transplant May Be a First

A 29-year-old Carlsbad woman received a life-saving single lung in an almost simultaneous transplant with another recipient, in what may be a history-making medical procedure, Stanford University Hospital announced Monday.

Mary Jane Anderson was in stable condition in the intensive-care unit after she and Patty Dirschl, 40, of Rancho Cordova near Sacramento each received a lung from the same donor during a 5 1/2-hour procedure in Palo Alto last weekend.

Hospital spokesman Ron Goben said this is the first time Stanford has undertaken simultaneous single lung transplants from a donor, and added that he doubts if the procedure has been done elsewhere.

“There are very few places doing single lung transplants,” let alone twin surgeries, he said.

Anderson suffers from primary pulmonary hypertension--essentially high blood pressure in the lungs--a disease that in time destroys the lungs and endangers the heart. Goben said she had been on the transplant waiting list for a year.

“I think it’s almost certain that eventually she would have died from her ailment,” Goben said, adding that he does not know when Anderson contracted the disease. Dirschl is afflicted with Eisenmenger’s physiology, a condition caused by a hole in the heart.

The spokesman said Anderson apparently had been staying in the San Francisco Bay Area waiting for a donor when word came Saturday that the lungs of a 21-year-old Castro Valley man were available. Hospital authorities did not disclose the man’s name or cause of death.

Both Anderson and Dirschl, who carried beepers, were summoned immediately. Time is crucial, Goben said, because of the delicacy of the lungs, which must be transferred before infection sets in.

Dr. Vaughn Starnes performed the transplants between 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 a.m. Sunday. The patients were in separate operating rooms but underwent surgical preparation at the same time, Goben said.

Anderson’s operation was unusual in another respect.

“What’s also pioneering about her case, it was a single lung transplant (for an illness), where you used to have to do a heart-lung transplant,” Goben said.

Anderson’s chances of recovery are considered good, he said, although the survival rate is not known because single lung transplants have been done only since June. More is known about heart-lung transplants, which have been performed since 1981 and have a 73% survival rate after a year, he said.