Teen-Age Girl 1st Recipient of Lung-Assist Device

A teen-age girl was in critical condition Saturday after becoming the world’s first recipient of an implant consisting of a slender bundle of fibers that works like a lung in supplying oxygen to the body.

The 20-inch device--designed to give damaged lungs a chance to rest and recover before it is removed--was implanted in a two-hour operation Friday at LDS Hospital, one of four U.S. centers approved for testing of the IntraVascular Oxygenator. The others include Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

Dr. Alan Morris, the hospital’s director of pulmonary research, emphasized that it was too early to evaluate the performance of the device. “There is a grave risk of misrepresentation,” he said, if the mechanism is seen as anything more than an experiment.

The IVOX is not an artificial lung but could lead to development of such a device, said its developer, Dr. J. D. Mortensen.

The family insisted that no details about the patient be made public, but sources confirmed that the recipient was a teen-age girl with acute respiratory failure. The Salt Lake Tribune said she is 16.

A hospital spokesman said only that the patient was in critical condition. The device was implanted by Dr. Roger C. Millar.

The device was inserted via the neck or groin into the inferior vena cava, the large vein that brings blood to the heart.

Two tubes the diameter of a soda straw are attached to the bundle and leave the body; one delivers oxygen to the body from a hospital oxygen system or tank, the other removes carbon dioxide, a waste product of breathing.

Mortensen said initial experiments will involve patients with acute lung disease, such as pneumonia or trauma from smoke inhalation, not long-term disorders.

Guidelines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in September limit the implants to seven days in people with acute respiratory failure who have little other chance of survival.