Illinois Hospital Performs First-of-its-Kind Transplant on Cancer Patient
A Chicago hospital is celebrating what is being called a "pioneering medical breakthrough" that involved the incredible work of doctors, who performed a first-of-its-kind surgery on a cancer patient from Savage, MN.
The patient, Amanda Wilk, is a 42-year-old woman who has been battling stage 4 colorectal cancer since 2017. The cancer initially spread to her liver. After undergoing cancer treatments and receiving a live transplant from her brother, doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital revealed that the cancer had returned, this time in her lungs...
Enter the "DREAM" Program, which stands for "Double Lung Replacement and Multidisciplinary Care." This unique clinical initiative was "designed for select patients with advanced lung cancers that do not respond to contemporary treatments," per Northwestern Medicine's newsroom's website.
Wilk received her brand new lungs on June 3rd, and she was discharged from Northwestern Memorial Hospital on June 10th, her 42nd birthday, fittingly. She even got to ring the bell, signaling she had completed cancer treatment. No signs of cancer exist in her body, and her cancer therapy has concluded.
This surgery is incredibly complex, which is why it's being called the "first-of-its-kind:"
This is a first-of-its-kind surgery at Northwestern Medicine where a patient with stage 4 colorectal cancer has successfully received a double-lung transplant. Our surgical team meticulously removed Mandy’s cancer-ridden lungs without allowing any cancerous cells to spill into her bloodstream, and then we transplanted new lungs. Based on all the testing that’s available to us – CT scans, PET scans, and molecular analyses of circulating cancer DNA in Mandy’s blood – we don’t see any remaining signs of cancer in her body. While we’re optimistic about her future, it’s important to approach this with cautious optimism as further research is needed to understand the long-term outcomes. - per Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosis in both men and women in the United States, and there's an alarming number of people under the age of 50 getting diagnosed in recent years. The liver and lungs are its main point of impact, which explains why its survival rate is low.
Originally from Lake Zurich, IL, Wilk moved to Minnesota where she presently works as an elementary curriculum and instruction specialist. She was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at the age of 34, initially thinking she had food poisoning until symptoms didn't subside. At the time, she was given approximately two years to live. Subsequent treatments she endured included a partial colon resection, chemotherapy, liver ablations and radiation beads on the liver, before receiving a liver transplant from her younger brother, Adam, in 2020, per Northwestern Medicine's website:
I traveled to almost every major health system across the country, and they all told me there was nothing more they could do. I believe in forward-thinking and was not going to take ‘no’ for answer, so when I inquired about the DREAM program at Northwestern Medicine, I was ecstatic that they were ready and eager to help me live. - Amanda Wilk, per Northwestern Medicine's website
You can read more about Amanda Wilk's story, and the life-saving procedure that makes local and medical history, on Northwestern Medicine's website.