Breast Implants Save Life Of Man Who Needed Double-Lung Transplant

CHICAGO — Northwestern Medicine surgeons used breast implants and an artificial lung to keep a patient alive after removing both of his lungs.

Davey Bauer, a 34-year-old from the St. Louis area, was diagnosed with influenza and developed an antibiotic-resistant lung infection in April, according to Northwestern Medicine. Bauer was admitted to hospital and placed on a device that does the work of the heart and the lungs, but his condition kept getting worse.

“Davey’s lungs were so heavily infected that they started to liquify. If you looked at his X-ray, there was nothing left — the lungs were completely filled with puss,” said pulmonologist Dr. Rade Tomic, the medical director Northwestern's lung transplant program.

It was clear that Bauer would not have survived a transplant in that condition, Tomic said in a statement.

"He needed to clear the infection before we could list him for transplant, but the only way to do that was to remove both lungs," the pulmonologist said. "This was unchartered territory for us, but our team knew if we couldn’t help Davey, no one else could.”

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Surgeons decided to remove both infected lungs and create an exterior "artificial lung" that could keep blood flowing to the heart and other organs.

But with both lungs missing from the chest cavity, Bauer's medical team needed to come up with a way to keep his heart from collapsing inside his chest cavity.

The solution was breast implants.

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“One of our plastic surgeons was very gracious to give us a rapid-fire course on the different types, shapes and sizes of breast implants, so we picked out a couple options and some of them were easier than others to mold inside Davey’s chest, with the DD option being the best fit,” said Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern Medicine.

After surgeons removed Bauer's lungs on May 26, his body started clearing the infection right away. He was listed for a double-lung transplant and got an offer the next day.

On May 28, the implants were removed and replaced with the new, donated lungs.

“Still to this day, I can’t believe Davey lived without any lungs," said Susan Gore, Bauer's girlfriend and caretaker. "He was breathing, blood pumping without lungs."

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Bharat said the new technology used in Bauer's case to keep him alive after removing his lungs could be transformative for many critically ill patients.

“With this new approach that we’ve developed, many patients who get to the point of needing a lung transplant — but their damaged lungs are making them too sick to get one — can now potentially get transplanted," Bharat said. "I think it’s going to open a lot of doors for many patients who have no other options.”

Bauer is a former pack-a-day cigarette smoker who switched to vaping nine years ago. He said in a statement that vaping felt better, and he believed it to be healthier than cigarettes, but he wound up finding it more addictive.

“While we don’t have definitive ways of proving my years of vaping caused my medical condition, doctors do know for a fact that vaping causes lung injury," Bauer said.

"If I could go back in time, I never would have picked up a cigarette or vape pen," he said, "and I hope my story can help encourage others to quit, because I wouldn’t wish this difficult journey on anyone.”