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Dr. Bremner explains if a patient should be concerned about not being able to breath naturally during the lung transplant procedure.
Dr. Bremner:
The patient is asleep, and they are maintained by oxygenation by the anesthesiologist. We will sometimes use the heart-lung bypass machine if we need to to maintain someone’s oxygenation, but the patient is asleep through all of that. So it may be similar to having a heart operation where you are put on the heart-lung machine, but sometimes we will sew one of the new organs in, we will oxygenate the patient with their new lung while we sew in the other side.
Sometimes patients will get one lung and sometimes patients will receive two lungs in a transplant, and that depends a lot on the disease process, which is causing the need for transplantation.
Dr. Bremner, M.D., Ph.D.:
Ross M. Bremner, M.D., Ph.D., is surgical director of the Center for Thoracic Disease and chief of thoracic surgery at the Heart & Lung Institute, St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center. Dr. Bremner completed his medical school training in South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand where he graduated magna cum laude and received the Harwood Nash Memorial medal for surgery. He then completed his general surgery training at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, during which time he also completed his Ph.D. Dr. Bremner then went on to complete his cardiothoracic training at USC after which he joined the faculty as assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery and director of the Hastings Thoracic Oncology Laboratory.