||LUNG TRANSPLANT IN A CASE OF INTERSTITIAL LUNG DISEASE||
42 year old female a known case of interstitial lung disease since 2010. She is also a known case of rheumatoid arthritis. She had worsening of her lung functions since 2020 and became oxygen dependent since 2023. She required more than 10 litres of oxygen support and became totally bedridden for the past 3 months. She got admitted and evaluated for lung transplantation and got registered in the Tamilnadu state transplant registry. She got deteriorated requiring HFNC support with 100 % oxygen. It was found that maintaining oxygen saturation more than 85 % was quite cumbersome even with 100 oxygen support. Patient family was counselled for emergency veno venous ECMO support to improve the oxygenation but she was lucky enough to get an inhouse donor lungs when she was at the verge of requiring mechanical circulatory support. On 26.01.2025 she underwent successful lung transplantation performed by Dr. Srinath Vijayasekharan, Dr. Senthil Kumar and Team and got shifted to ICU with open chest in view of oversized lungs. Her chest was closed on POD 2. Since she was bedridden she had poor muscle power and cough effort hence elective tracheostomy was done on POD 5. She was gradually weaned off from ventilator and removed from ventilator support by the end of two weeks. Postoperatively she developed gastroparesis and vocal cord palsy. She gradually improved and her tracheostomy tube was decannulated after one month of surgery. She remained hemodynamically stable and discharged after two months of surgery.