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Breast implants play a crucial role in innovative procedure to save life of man with severe lung damage (www.cnn.com)

submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

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When 34-year-old Davey Bauer’s lungs stopped working, doctors turned to an unusual tool to help keep him alive: large breast implants.

Experts say it was an innovative solution to give Bauer’s body time to fight off a nasty infection so it could accept a lifesaving double lung transplant. It may be the first instance of a potential transplant practice that could save people with infectious disease who probably would not have survived just years ago.

Bauer’s case started in April, when he felt like he couldn’t catch his breath. The avid snow- and skateboarder had always been healthy. He kept in good shape and maintained a healthy weight working in landscaping in De Soto, Missouri. But he had long been a smoker, starting a pack-a-day cigarette habit when he was 21. He switched to vaping in 2014.

“I thought it was the healthier alternative,” Bauer said. ”But, in all honesty, I found it more addicting than cigarettes.”

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[–] RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Pretty impressive. Still shitty reporting from CNN. They made it sound like vaping was how he ended up here. While it didn't help the situation it was definitely exponentially better than the cigarettes he smoked and the real culprit was him getting extremely sick from the flu. People forget that in real bad cases of the flu you get just as sick as you do from covid if not worse. We typically don't think about it because it's a disease that largely impacts the elderly and immunocompromised but it's yet another reminder of why you should get your flu shot yearly.

As for these transplant patients, I'm glad he's doing well but unfortunately there's a lot of complications that can arise with double lung transplants. Average life expectancy is around 6 or 7 years although a few can live beyond that.

Its some majorly innovative work that was done by the CT surgery team there. We probably would have just recognized he was too sick for a transplant and our docs wouldn't have even attempted it so good for them for tossing a Hail Mary pass. I suspect this could become a more widespread approach for these patients.

[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You would attribute his condition to the flu instead of the 10 years + of substance abuse whatever the vector to put it in his lungs? As wild take as that of CNN…

[–] RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 years ago

For sure. He's not that old lol. Cigarette use doesn't cause you to need new lungs after ten years. It causes you to need new lungs after probably closer to 30 or 40 years. Now cigarette use definitely damages the lungs and puts you at increased risk of having a very bad outcome from a very bad case of the flu. That is for sure.

But CNN over here trying to just toss up vaping as if that's what did this. It's laughable journalism. Vaping is bad but on the continuum of bad things it's better to see former smokers that now vape than if they were to continue smoking. Of course we want to see people use none of these substances at all but that's not the real world.