Double-lung recipient, 8, released from hospital

An 8-year-old girl was discharged from a hospital in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Monday after receiving a pair of lungs in a transplant operation.

The girl, whose name is not being used because of privacy concerns, was the youngest patient ever to undergo the surgery in the South China region. Her case demonstrated the hospital's mastery of advanced technologies in lung transplantation, said Yu Xueqing, president of Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, where the surgery was conducted.

The girl is among the top 10 youngest people nationwide to have lungs transplanted. Only three patients under age 5 have received lungs to date.

The country's youngest lung transplant patient was about 2 years old.

Yu urged more people to donate their organs after death, as doing so can help save many critically ill patients. He made the remark at a news conference on Wednesday.

Qiao Guibin, director of the thoracic surgery department at the hospital, said the transplant surgery went very smoothly. It started at about about 2 pm and was completed at around 6 pm on Oct 17, with more than 20 medical professionals participating, he said.

The 8-year-old girl gained at least 1 kilogram during her hospital stay, and is "a clever girl", Qiao said.

She had contracted leukemia at the age of 3 and had to receive bone marrow transplants from her father, as well as chemotherapy, over several years, causing her to lose lung function, Qiao said.

The girl and her mother, who come from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, took a high-speed train to Guangzhou on Oct 16 after receiving news from the China Organ Transplant Response System that a donor's lungs matched her own. The mother-daughter pair arrived in Guangzhou early the next day.

The lung donor was a 9-year-old girl who had died after a series of health problems, Qiao said.

Guo Yuxiong, deputy director of the pediatrics department and director of the pediatric intensive care unit at the hospital, said a special task force was established to help the recipient recover after surgery.

The girl, weighed 15.1 kg and was weak when she arrived at the hospital, Guo said.

A healthy 8-year-old typically weighs around 25 kg, he said.