A second person has been cured of terminal lung cancer after a rare double lung transplant.
Tannaz Ameli, 64, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has now been declared cancer free after receiving the surgery at Northwestern Medicine in June. She joins Albert Khoury, 54, who successfully received the operation at Northwestern in 2021.
Lung transplants for patients at this stage would usually be a ‘complete ‘no-no’, explained Dr Ankit Bharat, Northwestern’s chief of thoracic surgery, said. But, luckily for Mr Khoury and Ms Ameli, their cancer did not spread beyond their lungs.
This is a rare characteristic for stage 4 lung cancer. It allows the transplant to fully remove the disease, making the pair perfect candidates for the operation.
Lung cancer is one of the leading killers of Americans, with the disease-causing around 120,000 deaths each year. An estimated 240,000 cases will be diagnosed in 2023.
This is very misleading. Stage IV. This stage means that cancer has spread to other organs or parts of the body. It may be also called advanced or metastatic cancer.