Chicago, IL – August 5, 2025 – For 28-year-old Dean Comstock of Syracuse, New York, music has always played an important role in his life. When he started playing guitar at the age of nine, one of his favorite songs was “Sweet Home Chicago,” but little did he know, 19 years later, that song would hold a whole new meaning.

In October 2023, Dean developed a cough that wouldn’t go away. At first, his doctors thought it was pneumonia or acid reflux, but on August 8, 2024, Dean was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. As an active community member who worked three jobs and didn’t have a history of smoking, Dean was shocked. He started chemotherapy, but his breathing got worse, and he soon had to rely on supplemental oxygen. Dean’s cancer was terminal, and he was quickly running out of options.  

That’s when his mom, Jill Comstock, who happened to receive a lung transplant in 2021 for pulmonary fibrosis at another hospital, asked her medical team if a lung transplant could be a possibility for him at their site. Her doctors told the family only one health system in the United States was known to perform lung transplants on patients with terminal lung cancer, and Dean would need to travel to Northwestern Medicine in Chicago to participate in a clinical trial known as DREAM, where select patients with advanced lung cancers receive double-lung transplants.

This March, Dean arrived at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he underwent a transplant evaluation and met with Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute.

By May 8, Dean was listed for a double-lung transplant and eight days later, he received his new lungs on May 16.

Making beautiful music together

One month later, on June 27, Dean celebrated his five-year wedding anniversary with his wife, McKayla Comstock, who is a music teacher at Jordan-Elbridge High School in Jordan, New York. In fact, the two first met in the same music room where McKayla now teaches, and they often play music together at weddings and special events.

Two months after his transplant, Dean and McKayla played for an audience in Chicago they’ll never forget – Dr. Bharat and members of the lung transplant team who helped save Dean’s life. Dean strummed his guitar in a clinic exam room as McKayla sang the lyrics to “Sweet Home Chicago.”

“The song has always been one of my favorite songs to play, and I really never knew why since I’m from Syracuse, New York, but now that a team of surgeons, doctors and nurses in Chicago saved my life, the city and the song will always hold a special place in my heart,” said Dean. “This is where miracles happen; right here at Northwestern Medicine.”  

Dean will remain in Chicago for one-year post-transplant so he can be near his medical team, and he’s looking forward to the future.

“I’m so thankful to be able to breathe fresh air every day. I’m thankful for my donor, my community, my family and everyone who has helped me along the way. I’m going to smell the roses a little bit more and enjoy life. Once you go through something like this, you learn how precious life really is,” said Dean.

Lung cancer cases on the rise in young people

Cancers of the lung are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States with more people dying of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined, and doctors have noticed a startling new trend.

“On a daily basis, we’re seeing more young people being diagnosed with lung cancer,” said Dr. Bharat. “Conventionally, lung cancer has been associated with smoking and older age. While smoking certainly increases your chances of developing lung cancer, we’re seeing an explosion of lung cancer cases in patients who have never smoked or had limited smoking exposure – like Dean.”

The Canning Thoracic Institute has launched a universal lung cancer screening program where patients who meet certain criteria can get screened for lung cancer, even if their insurance doesn’t provide financial support. The goal is to share the findings with the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force and urge them to let all patients beyond a certain age receive an annual lung cancer screening.

“If lung cancer is causing the most deaths in this country, impacting smokers and nonsmokers, we need a universal screening program just like we have for breast and colon cancer,” added Dr. Bharat.

About the DREAM Program

To date, Northwestern Medicine surgeons have performed more than 50 lung transplants for patients with advanced lung cancers.

Using lessons learned from pioneering COVID-19 lung transplantation in the U.S., they developed the novel surgical technique to clear the cancer during surgery while minimizing the risk of spread that has plagued prior such attempts at other hospitals.

“We’re very proud of the DREAM Program. This innovative technique involves putting the patient on full heart and lung bypass, delicately taking both cancer-ridden lungs out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, washing the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer, and then putting new lungs in,” said Dr. Bharat. “These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so we must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream. We believe this technique can help reduce the risk of recurrence, which we learned through our experience with pioneering COVID-19 lung transplants in 2020.”

Since Northwestern Medicine’s Lung Transplant Program first started in 2014, they’ve performed more than 600 lung transplant procedures for patients with end-stage lung diseases such as COVID, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and more. In 2024, Northwestern Medicine had the shortest wait time for a lung transplant in the U.S. with a median wait time of four days. They also performed 148 lung transplants, the most performed at any transplant center in the U.S. for 2024.

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the 24-hour referral line at 312.695.5864 or 844.639.5864. For more information about the Lung Transplant Program or lung cancer screenings, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – July 9, 2025 – Weight gain isn’t just a result of what you eat and how you move your body. It’s also related to genetic, societal, and environmental factors. For many, obesity is a disease. But for those wanting to start a family, healthy behaviors and lifestyle choices are important to help achieve reproductive goals, which is why the Northwestern Medicine PEARL Program (Preconception and Early Assessment Care Rooted in Lifestyle Management) was launched to  support people with obesity who are planning a pregnancy.  

“Here at Northwestern Medicine, we receive a lot of referrals for patients with higher body mass index (BMI) that might not be cared for at other health systems, and with the PEARL Program, we’re eliminating that bias to help provide the obstetrics care they need,” said Christina Boots, MD, a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist at Northwestern Medicine who co-founded the PEARL Program. “We’re really proud to have established a multidisciplinary clinic to care for these women who are trying to get pregnant, want to reduce health risks during pregnancy, and manage their mental health and possible weight gain postpartum.”

The PEARL Program was designed for patients who have a BMI more than 27, are planning an immediate pregnancy or looking ahead to the future. Some women with higher BMI will have ovulatory dysfunction, a condition where the ovaries don’t release an egg during a menstrual cycle. A drop in weight can sometimes help women ovulate more consistently, thus increasing their rate of spontaneously getting pregnant. Weight loss can also help prevent the risk of health complications during pregnancy.  

“When we look at clinical obesity, we can’t just define the disease as having a BMI over 30, but we need to look at how the disease impacts one’s overall health,” said Veronica Johnson, MD, an obesity medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine who co-founded the PEARL Program. “Excess body fat can impact a woman’s health including infertility, irregular menstrual cycles and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), but it can also cause other health-related conditions such as obstructive sleep apnea, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and osteoarthritis of the knees or the hips. These are all things we really want to have the patient improve upon before getting pregnant.”

What to expect during a consultation with the PEARL Program

For each patient, a team of experts from reproductive endocrinology and infertility, obesity medicine, maternal-fetal medicine, psychology and more, design a personalized weight loss program to fit a patient’s needs and goals which may include nutrition, physical activity, mental health, lifestyle treatment options, and in some cases, using weight loss medications such as GLP-1 agonists.

During a patient’s first consult with the PEARL Program, a physician will typically ask questions such as:

-        How do you feel about your weight?

-        Do you think you’d benefit from extra nutrition counseling?

-        Do you need motivation to move your body more?

-        When do you think you might want to start a family?

-        What’s your ideal family size?   

Depending on answers to the questions, next steps will then be taken for planning a future pregnancy.

“Preconception counseling is so important because everyone’s prenatal care might be different, their delivery might be different and their postpartum care might be different,” said Michelle Kominiarek, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine who co-founded the PEARL Program. “It takes time to have meaningful weight loss, which can result in some tough conversations.”

Obesity’s impact on fertility and pregnancy 

When it comes to a patient’s fertility, physicians with the PEARL Program emphasize that age, much more so than BMI, influences how likely a woman is to get pregnant, which is why it’s important for women to talk to a physician sooner rather than later.

“For example, if a woman first comes to us in her late 20s or early 30s, she should still generally have good egg quality and quantity left, but if a woman is approaching 40, that’s when she really needs to be worried about the decline in her fertility. For some women, that means we’re freezing eggs or creating embryos ahead of time and then making the weight loss goal a priority before she tries to conceive,” said Dr. Boots. “That’s why thoughtful, individualized conversations are needed to come up with a strategy.”

For patients with higher BMI who need to undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, excess body fat can make it more difficult to administer fertility treatments because the ultrasound imaging is more challenging. Higher BMI may also play a role in egg quality, implantation, embryo development and increased risk of miscarriage. With higher BMI, physicians also see higher rates of thyroid disfunction, insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood pressure and hypertension.

“We see that having excess body fat and an energy imbalance can also influence how our hypothalamus talks to our pituitary, which talks to our ovary. It’s a really delicate system that can get interrupted,” said Dr. Boots. “The primary way a lot of weight affects getting pregnant is just not having regular menstrual cycles and not ovulating with consistency.”

Once pregnant, patients with higher BMI face several risks during pregnancy such as preeclampsia (high blood pressure) which can lead to organ damage, stroke, seizures or death; gestational diabetes; blood clots; premature delivery; longer labor; and possibly needing a cesarean section (C-section). The baby may also be at high risk for birth defects that affect the brain and spinal cord.

Are weight loss medications safe to use during pregnancy?

GLP-1 agonists can be used to lower weight which may improve pregnancy outcomes, however, there can be rebound weight gain after stopping the medication. Physicians are monitoring how that rebound weight gain will impact the pregnancy; does it blend in with the expected weight gain of pregnancy or does it magnify it? Currently, physicians with the PEARL Program don’t recommend patients stay on GLP-1 agonists during pregnancy.

“GLP-1 agonists shouldn’t be used during pregnancy because there isn’t enough research to show what they’ll do to a growing baby,” said Jacqueline Hairston, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine who is part of the clinical team for the PEARL Program. “We also have to be really careful about recommending fast meaningful weight loss right before someone is trying to get pregnant because their metabolism is going to change so much. Diminishing a patient’s nutrition and energy imbalance isn’t the best time to be growing a baby, so we’ll tell patients they should wait a year or two from that massive weight loss before trying to get pregnant. Just telling patients, ‘Lose a bunch of weight and you’ll get pregnant,’ isn’t the right answer.”

Postpartum weight gain management

The PEARL Program is also working to help decrease weight bias in clinical settings; define clinical obesity and review the current treatment options; understand the data associating fertility outcomes with BMI; and improve preconception counseling in women with higher BMI. The program also monitors women postpartum to help them manage the weight gain from the pregnancy.

“Pregnancy is unique because it’s one of the few times people have a doctor say to them, ‘We expect you to gain weight.’ What that means for their mental health to see their body change after successful weight loss is certainly something that is a very individual experience,” said Dr. Kominiarek.

“The mental health piece is so important, so making sure we connect them with a mental health provider as they’re going through their weight loss journey, or weight gain that comes with pregnancy, is important. They need support from their physicians, psychologists, family and friends,” said Dr. Hairston.

For patients wanting to discuss how to optimize their health before pregnancy, a consultation can be scheduled with the PEARL Program by calling 312.695.7269. Additional information on obstetrics care at Northwestern Medicine can be found at nm.org.

CHICAGO – May 11, 2025 – Eight months after giving birth to twins, Cornelia Tischmacher of Berlin, Germany, had a case of pneumonia that wouldn’t go away. The then 40-year-old went to the doctor in January 2018, where tests showed she had stage 3 lung cancer. As a nonsmoker who was healthy, worked out and had a busy career as an art historian and gallerist, Tischmacher was shocked by the diagnosis.

“I absolutely loved my job and had to travel quite a bit for work, but when I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, my priorities immediately shifted. I knew I had to do everything I could to stay alive for my children,” said Tischmacher. “My twins would never hear me say the words, ‘Mommy is going to die.’”

In June 2018, Tischmacher underwent surgery and chemotherapy to get rid of the cancer, but by October 2019, it returned. Doctors told her palliative care with chemotherapy and immunotherapy was the only option to possibly slow down the cancer’s relentless progression.  

By June 2024, she could no longer breathe without supplemental oxygen and that’s when Tischmacher discovered a first-of-its-kind clinical program at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago called DREAM (Double Lung Transplant Registry Aimed for Lung-Limited Malignancies), where select patients with advanced lung cancers confined to the lungs can be considered for a double-lung transplant. Currently, Northwestern Medicine is one of the only known health systems in the world with a dedicated lung transplant program for patients with advanced cancers limited to the lungs. 

“During our first telehealth visit with Cornelia, it was clear to us that she was at the end of the road,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute who performed Tischmacher’s transplant. “Cornelia had failed every other medical treatment available to her, including surgeries, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, but the cancer continued to progress to stage 4 and became so advanced that it was causing her lungs to fail. She couldn’t breathe, and a lung transplant was her only option to fix the lung failure, remove all the cancer cells from her body, and give her a fighting chance to be there for her twins.”

Leaving her life in Berlin for a second chance at life

After being accepted to the DREAM Program, Tischmacher boarded an air ambulance and flew from Berlin to Chicago in December 2024. She was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and placed on the transplant waiting list on Christmas Eve. Two days after being listed, Tischmacher received new lungs on December 26, which was the second day of Christmas in Germany.

“With how quickly her disease was progressing, it was clear to us that Cornelia would not be able to leave the hospital without receiving a lung transplant. She was requiring up to 60 liters of oxygen per minute through her nasal cannulae, which is the absolute limit you can supply without a ventilator. For that very reason, we worked around the clock to complete her lung transplant workup and arrange all the logistics needed for her to stay in the United States,” said Krishnan Warrior, MD, a lung transplant pulmonologist at the Canning Thoracic Institute who has been caring for Tischmacher since her arrival.

“Receiving my lung transplant on December 26 was the best Christmas present I could have asked for,” said Tischmacher. “I remember waking up and thinking for the first time in a long time, I will be able to go to museums and go for bike rides with my kids without bringing an oxygen tank with me. I could finally breathe again. It was such a gift that I don’t take for granted, and I encourage everyone (who is able) to register as an organ donor – not just in the United States, but also in Germany.”

Reuniting with her 8-year-old twins

Tischmacher spent one week recovering at Northwestern Memorial before being discharged to an apartment in Chicago. The 48-year-old will remain in the city for one-year post-transplant to be near her medical team. The most difficult part is being far away from her husband, Udo Kittelmann, and their 8-year-old twins, Leo and Lucie, who remain in Berlin to continue their schooling. The twins were able to visit their mom for the first time since December, when they were reunited in Chicago in mid-April for spring break.

“Seeing my children for the first time in four months was absolutely wonderful. The weight of my illness had weighed them down, and to see me healthy again was overwhelming – but in a good way,” said Tischmacher. “It’s a happy continuation of the story because it could have been so different. When we said our initial ‘goodbyes’ in December, it was much more dramatic because we didn’t know how things would go.”

Tischmacher currently has no signs of cancer in her body and is now able to walk around Chicago, touring the local art galleries, breathing on her own. She was the first patient from Germany to receive a lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine. In the past, patients have also traveled from Asia, Brazil, Colombia, Canada, the Middle East and other parts of Europe for a lung transplant. The team at Northwestern Medicine International Health welcomes patients from around the globe who seek advanced treatment for a variety of medical conditions.   

“Medicine is evolving rapidly, but unfortunately, the way medicine is practiced globally, not all treatments are available at all sites right away,” said Dr. Bharat. “Often when a center develops something new, it takes years for it to be available across the country or internationally. It’s very important for patients to find a second opinion and take matters into their own hands when they’re being told there are no other options.”

Lung cancer cases on the rise in young women

Cancers of the lung are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States with more people dying of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined, and doctors have noticed a startling new trend.

“On a daily basis, we’re seeing more young women being diagnosed with lung cancer,” said Dr. Bharat. “Conventionally, lung cancer has been associated with smoking and older age. While smoking certainly increases your chances of developing lung cancer, we’re seeing an explosion of lung cancer cases in patients who have never smoked or had limited smoking exposure – like Cornelia. The majority of them are young, and the majority are women, and we still aren’t sure why this is happening.”

The Canning Thoracic Institute has started several research programs to try and understand why more women are being diagnosed with lung cancer. They also launched a universal lung cancer screening program where patients who meet certain criteria can get screened for lung cancer, even if their insurance doesn’t provide financial support. The goal is to share the findings with the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force and urge them to let all patients beyond a certain age receive an annual lung cancer screening.

“If lung cancer is causing the most deaths in this country, impacting smokers and nonsmokers, we need a universal screening program just like we have for breast and colon cancer,” added Dr. Bharat.

About the DREAM Program

To date, Northwestern Medicine surgeons have performed more than 50 lung transplants for patients with advanced lung cancers.

Using lessons learned from pioneering COVID-19 lung transplantation in the U.S., they developed the novel surgical technique to clear the cancer during surgery while minimizing the risk of spread that has plagued prior such attempts at other hospitals.

“We’re very proud of the DREAM Program. This innovative technique involves putting the patient on full heart and lung bypass, delicately taking both cancer-ridden lungs out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, washing the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer, and then putting new lungs in,” said Dr. Bharat. “These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so we must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream. We believe this technique can help reduce the risk of recurrence, which we learned through our experience with pioneering COVID-19 lung transplants in 2020.”

Since Northwestern Medicine’s Lung Transplant Program first started in 2014, they’ve performed more than 600 lung transplant procedures for patients with end-stage lung diseases such as COVID, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and more. In 2024, Northwestern Medicine had the shortest wait time for a lung transplant in the U.S. with a median wait time of four days. They also performed 148 lung transplants, the most performed at any transplant center in the U.S. for 2024.

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the 24-hour referral line at 312.695.5864 or 844.639.5864. For more information about the Lung Transplant Program or lung cancer screenings, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – February 5, 2025 – In an effort to expand the donor pool for lung transplant recipients and give surgeons more time to removed diseased lungs, the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute (CTI) is now routinely repairing damaged donor lungs using “lungs in a box” (lung perfusion) technology and storing them for transplantation by putting “lungs in a fridge” (lung refrigeration). These innovative approaches are yielding dramatic benefits for patients and staff alike.

In 2024, CTI’s Lung Transplant Program finished the year by performing 148 lung transplants, their highest volume for a single year since the program began 10 years ago. For the first time, CTI also become the highest volume lung transplant center in the United States and achieved the shortest wait time for a lung transplant, with a median wait time of four days. 

“Since our lung transplant program launched 10 years ago, several innovations helped us reach these achievements for 2024. From performing the first COVID-19 lung transplants in the U.S., to starting a lung transplant program for select patients with advanced lung cancers, and replacing diseased lungs with breast implants to bridge patients to lung transplantation, we’re continuously thinking outside the box and ‘lungs in a fridge’ is another example,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute. “In 2024, we used ‘lungs in a box’ to repair the most number of donor lungs that weren’t initially usable at Northwestern Medicine, enabling us to achieve a record wait list time of only four days. And now, with controlled lung refrigeration, we can keep the lungs alive outside the human body for an extended period of time, giving us more time to prepare for transplantation and perform the surgery.”

“With a combination of ‘lungs in a box’ and ‘lungs in a fridge’ technologies, we also now have the option for patients at any transplant center in the country or overseas who experience longer wait-times to dual list with us, and in 2024, patients traveled from places such as Germany, the United Kingdom and Columbia to receive a lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine,” said Ambalavanan Arunachalam, MD, pulmonologist and interim medical director of CTI’s Lung Transplant Program.  

Lung refrigeration was pioneered in Canada and Europe, and within the last few months, it was adopted successfully at Northwestern Medicine, where organ procurement specialists travel to hospitals across the United States to collect donor lungs, and once the lungs arrive at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, staff place them in a special refrigerator which is set at 10 degrees Celsius. The lungs can remain in the fridge up to 12 hours before transplantation when the conventional techniques only allowed them to stay outside for about six hours.  

“Prior to using the fridge, we were storing the donor lungs on ice, which is four degrees Celsius, and we had to perform the recipient lung implant surgery immediately without the opportunity to extend the preservation time,” said Anitha Chandrasekhar, DMSc, clinical lead for lung bioengineering with the Canning Thoracic Institute. “Studies show that 10-degree Celsius storage of lungs allows safe prolongation of cold ischemic times, results in better mitochondrial health with reduced inflammatory response, ultimately leading to better post-transplant outcomes, benefitting patients and health care teams.”

Four main benefits for using “lungs in a fridge”

Widens the donor pool

Lung refrigeration widens the donor pool by allowing Northwestern Medicine’s organ procurement team to travel greater distances for donor lungs. Previously, there was only so much time that the lungs could be kept alive outside the body, which restricted how far the organ procurement specialists could travel. From the moment they’d take the lungs out of the donor, they’d have six hours to package up the lungs, get to a local airport, fly to Chicago, drive to Northwestern Memorial, take the old lungs out and put the new lungs in.

“With this new type of preservation, our organ procurement specialists can fly to the East Coast, West Coast and potentially even Canada or Mexico. As a result, our wait times for lung transplant patients have dramatically gone down,” said Dr. Arunachalam.

Fewer overnight transplants

Storing donor lungs at 10 degrees Celsius allows for more flexible transplant scheduling. Lung refrigeration helps improve transplant logistics, which in turn, makes lung transplantation a semi-elective procedure performed during normal working hours.

“Previously, these transplants would happen in the middle of the night when the team may not be in the best physical or mental capacity. For example, if the procurement team arrives at 1 am with the donor lungs, we can now put the lungs in the fridge and wait to do the transplant at 7 am. By keeping the lungs preserved at 10 degrees Celsius, the team can operate during regular hours after a full night’s rest, which helps with success rates and lowers the chance of medical errors,” said Dr. Bharat. “Also, given the tough hours for lung transplant surgery, fewer surgeons have been interested in the field, resulting in a significant shortage of thoracic surgeons. But with this new strategy, more talented surgeons may be interested in adopting lung transplantation in their career.”

Improves surgical schedules

Transplants are often unpredictable. Donor lungs can become available on short notice, so in some instances, elective surgeries have to be cancelled in order to get the transplant done in time, which causes an inconvenience for patients who have been waiting for their elective surgeries (ex: cancer patients). “Lungs in a fridge” allows the surgical team to keep elective surgeries and schedule the lung transplant procedures during times that work best for staff and patients. It also helps lung transplant recipients because they no longer have to rush from their home to the hospital in a short period of time to get their lung transplants within the six-hour window.

“Lung refrigeration provides us with more options for getting our transplant recipients one step closer to a better quality of life,” said Denisha Gardner, organ procurement specialist with the Canning Thoracic Institute. “There are times when our recipients need a certain medication to be given hours before transplantation. Having the fridge allows us the opportunity to make sure everything is aligned for a successful procedure.”

More time to remove diseased lungs

Double-lung transplants are one of the most complex medical procedures in health care. Lung refrigeration gives surgeons more time to remove the diseased lungs, especially in patients with lung cancer.

Northwestern Medicine started a first-of-its-kind clinical program called DREAM that provides double-lung transplants to select patients with advanced lung cancers who are out of treatment options. With these patients, their cancer-ridden lungs must delicately be taken out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, then surgeons need to wash the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer before transplanting new lungs. These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so surgeons must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream.

Having more time in the operating room to remove the cancer-ridden lungs can help reduce the risk of recurrence.

Successful patient outcomes with lung refrigeration

Tadd Crosslin – Mansfield, Texas

Tadd Crosslin of Mansfield, Texas, (located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area) received a double-lung transplant at Northwestern Memorial on September 23, 2024. The 49-year-old who is married (wife is Courtney) with twin sons (Cody and Blake), was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in 2016 at the age of 40, and it advanced to stage 4 by 2019.

While undergoing chemotherapy and surgery, Crosslin’s medical team noticed lung nodules forming but told him not to worry. Soon, the lung nodules started multiplying and Crosslin had hundreds of tumors on his lungs, which caused him to have difficulty breathing.

“I traveled to major health systems in Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey, New York and even Germany, looking for a second opinion, but they all told me there was nothing more they could do,” said Crosslin. “Giving up was never an option for me, and Northwestern Medicine doesn’t shy away from exploring new techniques and technology. Without them, I wouldn’t be here today.”

On September 23, Crosslin received his new lungs, but the surgery wasn’t easy. Because there were so many tumors and extensive cancer inside Crosslin’s old lungs, his explant was extremely difficult (see pictures here).

“Having the refrigerator was a game-changer in Tadd’s lung transplant procedure,” added Dr. Bharat. “Because his diseased lungs were fused so tightly to his chest cavity, we kept needing more time to remove them. We couldn’t let his new lungs go bad, so we were able to store them in the fridge until we were ready to transplant them.”

The Double Lung Replacement and Multidisciplinary Care (DREAM) Program is a first-of-its-kind clinical initiative at Northwestern Medicine that provides double-lung transplants to select patients with advanced lung cancers who are not responding to conventional treatments. To date, more than 40 patients have received double-lung transplants through the DREAM Program.

Amanda Long – Nashville, Tennessee

Amanda Long of Nashville, Tenn., is also a DREAM patient. The 48-year-old wife (husband is James) and mother of three daughters (Kenzie, Maddie and Makenna) was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in September 2023.

“As a non-smoker who eats healthy and works out five-days-a-week, I was completely shocked by the diagnosis,” said Long.

When immunotherapy and chemotherapy treatments didn’t work, Long’s medical team in Nashville recommended she reach out to the lung transplant team at Northwestern Medicine. Long was listed for a lung transplant on August 15, 2024, and received her new lungs on August 21.

Because it took the surgical team longer to remove her diseased lungs due to the cancer, lung refrigeration was also used to store Long’s new lungs. Long is now back home in Nashville and will return to Northwestern Memorial once-a-month for follow up appointments.   

“The fridge is so simple and doesn’t further complicate what might be one of the more complex procedures in health care. If anything, it makes everything go more smoothly for the team in the operating room,” added Jeff Lysne, practice administrator for the Canning Thoracic Institute. “Overall, it’s been great to see such a simple innovation used to expand our donor pool and help more patients.”

For more information

In 2024, the lung transplant team used “lungs in a fridge” for approximately 12 patients, all with good outcomes. Since CTI’s Lung Transplant Program started in 2014, they’ve performed nearly 600 lung transplant procedures. Currently, more than 900 patients in the U.S. are waiting for new lungs.

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the referral line at 844.639.5864. For more information about Northwestern Medicine, as well as advanced therapies, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – December 24, 2024 – In December 2023, while pregnant with her first child, MaKenna Lauterbach developed a cough that wouldn’t go away. The then 26-year-old, who lives on a farm with horses and goats in Washburn, Ill., mentioned the cough to her local doctors, but because she was pregnant, her doctors were reluctant to perform chest scans due to possible radiation exposure.

“I give hay to the horses every morning and noticed how winded I was becoming with a dry cough. My body felt like I just ran two miles, when in reality, I had only walked to the barn and back,” said Lauterbach. “I knew something was wrong.”

By the time Lauterbach was 36-weeks pregnant, the cough was so bad that she started throwing up while coughing. After she was hospitalized for shortness of breath, doctors obtained imaging and discovered a large, grapefruit-sized tumor in her middle chest cavity and right lung, completely blocking the artery to the right lung. 

Lauterbach was in respiratory distress, which meant both she and the baby weren’t getting adequate oxygen. Due to her critical condition, Lauterbach was flown to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and rushed to an intensive care unit where a large team of obstetricians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, nurses and staff awaited her. There, the maternal-fetal medicine team also noticed Lauterbach’s blood pressure was rising, she was contracting, and the baby wasn’t tolerating the contractions well.

“MaKenna was in real trouble, and we had to act quickly – this wasn’t something that could wait for Monday morning,” said Lynn Yee, MD, maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine. “When you’re pregnant with a baby that’s nearly full-term, your lungs already aren’t functioning at full capacity, and when you add a huge tumor on top of it, you run the risk of having respiratory collapse and cardiac arrest.”

In the early hours of Easter Sunday on March 31, after preparing the patient to potentially need extracorporeal life support (ECMO) after delivery, Dr. Yee performed an emergency cesarean section and a healthy baby boy named Colter was born. He remained in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital for one week, where the family formed a connection with the nursing staff, especially clinical nurse Mary Schuessler.

“Because of the tumor, the delivery happened so quickly. I was grieving the birth plan I had spent months preparing for, while also dealing with the news of my unexpected diagnosis,” said Lauterbach. “My situation was serious, and while my clinical team was working on a plan to treat my cancer, it was comforting to know that Mary and the rest of the NICU nurses were taking such wonderful care of our son. My husband (Parker) and I can’t thank them enough.”

Making the Diagnosis and Developing a Treatment Plan

Following the delivery, doctors needed to figure out what type of tumor Lauterbach had. Kalvin Lung, MD, a thoracic surgeon with the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, was able to obtain a sample of the tumor with advanced bronchoscopy to diagnose Lauterbach with stage 3 melanoma. Knowing the benefit of a team approach to provide the most innovative treatments, Dr. Lung reached out to Sunandana Chandra, MD, medical oncologist with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, to see if there was anything to offer Lauterbach to help shrink the tumor before surgery.

“MaKenna’s diagnosis was difficult to make because we weren’t sure if the melanoma started in the chest or somewhere else, and there isn’t much literature or published cases on how to best treat tumors like these, so we had to rely on the expertise that we’ve developed here at Northwestern Medicine,” said Dr. Lung.

Based on a nationwide clinical trial that Northwestern Medicine was a part of, researchers discovered pre-surgical immunotherapy can ultimately improve surgical outcomes for advanced melanoma patients. Dr. Chandra recommended Lauterbach go through three cycles of immunotherapy before surgery, which helped shrink the tumor from 13 centimeters to nine centimeters, allowing Dr. Lung and Chris Mehta, MD, a cardiac surgeon with the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute who specializes in complex heart reconstruction, to remove Lauterbach’s entire right lung, parts of the main pulmonary artery and lymph nodes. 

“The tumor was sitting on top of MaKenna’s heart and extended into the right lung, impacting all three lobes and the entire main trunk of the pulmonary artery, which is why we had to remove the right lung,” said Dr. Lung.

“It's extremely rare to see this type of tumor invading into the major blood vessels of the heart,” added Dr. Mehta. “We may see something like this once every few years.”

“We think at some point, MaKenna had a melanoma on her skin and her own immune system took care of it, but not before a cell or two may have escaped and eventually started growing inside her body,” explained Dr. Chandra. “After three doses of immunotherapy, once she was taken to surgery, the surgical specimen showed no melanoma cells that were viable. MaKenna’s scans currently show no evidence of metastatic melanoma, and the hope is with continued surveillance, we’ll continue to show she has no evidence of disease. Medically, this is an amazing story with profound results. This type of outcome for our patients is what we always hope for.”

Celebrating the Milestones

Lauterbach will continue immunotherapy treatments for one year. Her cancer is currently a stable disease, meaning no new tumors have appeared. She celebrated her 27th birthday in October and is looking forward to her son’s first Christmas on the farm.

“Colter's the best baby. He's always happy and sleeps through the night,” said Lauterbach. “I’m so grateful to have Colter and Parker in my life, and I can’t say enough about the wonderful medical team that saved my life. Because of Northwestern Medicine, I’m here today.”

“It brings tears to my eyes to see MaKenna doing so well, and seeing Colter thriving is amazing. It just goes to show that when you get all the right medical teams in place, you can truly help families thrive,” said Dr. Yee.

To learn more about Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org.  

CHICAGO – Just three weeks before getting married, Annesley Clark (they/them/theirs) had to cancel their wedding. The 33-year-old from Chicago, Ill., had a life-threatening infection and a mass growing on their heart. Clark needed open-heart surgery right away.  

Because of the infection, the risks from surgery increased significantly and their outcome was uncertain. Clark and their partner, Christine Corso (they/them/theirs), were determined to say their vows before it was too late. 

The nursing staff at Northwestern Memorial Hospital had formed a special bond with the couple and despite not having much time, they pulled together a wedding in less than 24 hours.   

“Annesley is one of the most positive people I have ever met and constantly uplifts others,” said Tien Mai, a clinical nurse on 11W Feinberg at Northwestern Memorial. “They asked if it was possible to have a wedding the next day before surgery, and the moment I heard that, I made all the calls necessary. From blowing up balloons at the nurses' station to safely preparing them to walk down the aisle, my whole team made all the details perfect. Seeing Annesley smile as they walked down the aisle was the best feeling.” 

On October 9, one day before heart surgery, the nurses transformed the hospital waiting room into a wedding venue with balloons, decorations, flowers, and a makeshift altar. Clark’s close family, friends, and dozens of hospital staff gathered to celebrate their big day. 

“I am so grateful for the care that I’ve received from these doctors and nurses,” said Clark. “I have spent more than a third of the past 15 months at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Many of the nurses at our hospital wedding were invited to our planned wedding in November. We’ve built such a great relationship with these people, and I have come to feel so cared for and seen by them. They’ve seen me in times that are really rough and scary, and I’m so glad they got to witness the enormity of the joy today.” 

A race against the clock 

The wedding allowed Clark and Corso to enjoy a few hours of bliss during an otherwise unnerving time. While most couples look ahead to a honeymoon on their wedding night, Clark was preparing for open heart surgery.  

Benjamin Bryner, MD, a cardiac surgeon at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, says he normally opts for a minimally invasive way to operate, but in Clark’s case, the mass on their heart was too big. Despite the infection and a suppressed immune system making Clark a poor candidate, open heart surgery was the only option.  

“We wanted to get this mass out as quickly as we could because we were worried about a bloodstream infection,” said Dr. Bryner. “The infection was not going to go away until we got the mass out. We have to try not to disturb other structures, and we don’t want pieces of the mass to break off and get sent to other parts of the body. So, we settled on opening the heart up and taking the mass out directly. The safest way to do that was through cardiopulmonary bypass, which is like a safety net that cardiac surgeons build for themselves. That allowed us to open the heart and salvage all of the blood that was coming out. We could then see this mass really clearly, lift it out of the heart, and then close it back up. Everything went very smoothly just like we had hoped.” 

Clark underwent surgery on October 10 and the mass was successfully removed. They spent a few weeks recovering in the hospital and are now enjoying their new married life with a healing heart.

The newlyweds are looking forward to their first holiday season as a married couple, with a lot to be thankful for.

To learn more about heart surgery and other cardiac treatments, visit nm.org.  

CHICAGO – After serving 21 years in the U.S. Army, Louis Smith’s heart only functioned at 10 percent. The father of three from Country Club Hills, Ill., had been visiting the Advanced Heart Failure Clinic at the Jesse Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center (JBVA) for about one year before his symptoms suddenly got worse. Just before Thanksgiving 2023, the then 65-year-old was told he needed a new heart.  

Louis was transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he waited just two weeks for his new heart. Before his transplant surgery on December 31, 2023, he wasn’t nervous, wasn’t scared, but did have one request for his surgeon.  

“Can you do me a favor? When you cut me, can you try to save the tattoo on my chest?” said Smith. “It’s a saying that me and my late father used to say. We would listen to ‘I did it my way’ by Frank Sinatra. That’s our saying. If you can please not destroy the tattoo, I’ll be just fine.” 

Benjamin Bryner, MD, a cardiac surgeon at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, made sure both the incision and stiches would preserve every inch of Smith’s tattoo.  

“Mr. Smith had some tattoos that we were eager to save as best we could,” said Dr. Bryner. “There’s no way to do a transplant without leaving a scar behind, but we did our best to make sure the tattoos would at least line up and we were happy with the final results.”

Serving His Country and Needing a New Heart

Smith enlisted in the Army when he was just 17 years old, following in the footsteps of his father. His more than two decades of service took him through tours in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Germany, and Korea, but feeling his heart begin to fail was something this soldier was not prepared for.  

“I used to wake up every morning around two o’clock,” said Smith. “It felt like somebody was either choking me or standing on my chest. And I couldn’t breathe. It was like somebody just turned off my air.” 

Smith suffered from cardiac amyloidosis, an underdiagnosed disease that causes heart failure. It occurs when protein builds up and is deposited in tissues where it isn’t supposed to be. This can lead to organ damage, notably in the heart. Cardiac amyloidosis impacts up to 25 percent of people over the age of 80, with African American patients at a higher risk.  

During his time in the Army, Smith was active and never had any issues with his health. He was 63 years old by the time he learned about the genetic condition he’s had since birth. Because his case was so advanced, not only did he need a heart transplant, but Sarah Chuzi, MD, a heart failure and heart transplantation specialist at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute and JBVA, recommended he be moved up on the list.  

“I went to visit him in the hospital and noticed he was short of breath just walking from his bed to the bathroom,” said Dr. Chuzi. “That was so out of character for him, so unlike him. I could tell that he really felt like things were changing rapidly. So, we recommended that he not only be listed for heart transplant but that he be listed at a very high status which gave him priority on the heart transplant list.”

Almost one year later, Smith is doing well and is back to his old routine. He enjoys spending time with his wife of 47 years, Jacquelyn, his three children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Smith is an avid biker, and often takes cross-country trips with friends on his motorcycle. He’s even taken one trip with his new heart.  

“I’m a soldier and a heart transplant survivor,” said Smith. “And I love my new heart.” 

More about the Advanced Heat Failure Clinic at the Jesse Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center 

For more than 77 years, Northwestern Medicine has partnered with the Jesse Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center (JBVA) in Chicago. Medical residents from the hospital system rotate through the VA clinic during their medical training, and it’s the longest-running academic affiliation in the VA system.  

In 2022, Sarah Chuzi, MD, a heart failure and heart transplantation specialist at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, established an Advanced Heart Failure Clinic at JBVA. Dr. Chuzi rotated through JBVA during her medical training and since then, she’s dedicated her career to helping veterans.

“The JBVA is very unique,” said Dr. Chuzi. “We serve about 62,000 veterans and about 70 percent of those veterans identify as Black. That is a population that is very underserved for a number of reasons. They face a lot of health barriers but also a lot of structural barriers to health like systemic racism, a lot of trauma, and PTSD. The combination of all these factors really does adversely affect their health.”

The clinic offers evidence-based heart failure care that includes medical therapy, devices, and other diagnostic tests and procedures. Patients from the heart failure clinic are often referred to Northwestern Medicine for specialized surgeries and treatments. Dr. Chuzi and her team will soon participate in heart failure clinical trials out of JBVA, including ones looking at new medications to improve patient outcomes.

To learn more about heart failure treatment options, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – October 13, 2024 – A Northwestern Medicine patient is celebrating one year cancer-free by running his second Chicago Marathon.

At age 60, Batbayar Tserendorj from Round Lake Beach, Ill., had been on the transplant waitlist for months. In early 2023, a liver cancer diagnosis likely caused by chronic hepatitis B and D infections left the husband, father and avid runner with a lot to process. With his medical team’s support, Tserendorj decided to move ahead with training for his first marathon.

“Running can improve cardiovascular function, which may support the body’s ability to recover from surgery,” said Northwestern Medicine transplant surgeon Juan Carlos Caicedo, MD. “After Batbayar finished radiation to shrink his liver tumor, we were supportive of him training while he waited on a match for a new liver."

“This was my chance,” said Tserendorj. “I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to run again, so I took up training for a marathon as a way to persist through the challenges I was facing.”

On Oct. 8, 2023, Tserendorj crossed the finish line of the Chicago Marathon. Nineteen days later, on Oct. 27, he returned to downtown Chicago to receive his liver transplant from the Northwestern Medicine Organ Transplant Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He calls that day his second birthday. He’s been cancer-free ever since.

“Batbayar’s entire medical team could see his drive to run the marathon, so we were happy to support his training and even happier to see him reach his goals," said Northwestern Medicine transplant hepatologist Amanda Cheung, MD. 

After his surgery, Tserendorj was determined to get back to running. With permission from his doctors, he ramped up his weekly mileage and finished the 2024 Chicago Marathon on Oct. 13.

“Like the marathon, my journey with cancer has been about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and I see that in everyone from my donor to my incredible Northwestern Medicine medical team," said Tserendorj. "Liver transplantation is not a death sentence. It’s a second chance at life.”

Born in Mongolia, Tserendorj is from a part of the world with one of the highest rates of liver cancer, as chronic infection with hepatitis B, C, and D are key factors in developing the disease. These infections are highly prevalent in the country, and since they can be transmitted from mother to child during birth, many people are exposed to the viruses early in life, leading to long-term liver damage and increased cancer risk.

Each year, more than 800,000 people are diagnosed with liver cancer throughout the world and it is the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.

CHICAGO – September 25, 2024 – In a pioneering medical breakthrough at Northwestern Medicine, surgeons have successfully performed a double-lung transplant on a patient with stage 4 colorectal cancer who had limited time to live. The procedure was achieved through the Double Lung Replacement and Multidisciplinary Care (DREAM) Program, a first-of-its-kind clinical initiative that was designed for select patients with advanced lung cancers that do not respond to contemporary treatments.

The patient, 42-year-old Amanda “Mandy” Wilk of Savage, Minn., had been battling stage 4 colorectal cancer since 2017, which had initially spread to her liver. After undergoing cancer treatments and receiving a liver transplant from her brother, the cancer returned – this time in her lungs. Facing few options for survival, Wilk sought out the DREAM program at Northwestern Medicine.

On June 3, Wilk received new lungs and was discharged from Northwestern Memorial Hospital one week later on June 10 – her 42^nd birthday. In a moment she had been waiting eight years for, Wilk rang the bell signaling she had completed cancer treatment. She currently has no signs of cancer in her body and doesn’t require any further cancer therapy.

“This is a first-of-its-kind surgery at Northwestern Medicine where a patient with stage 4 colorectal cancer has successfully received a double-lung transplant,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute. “Our surgical team meticulously removed Mandy’s cancer-ridden lungs without allowing any cancerous cells to spill into her bloodstream, and then we transplanted new lungs. Based on all the testing that’s available to us – CT scans, PET scans, and molecular analyses of circulating cancer DNA in Mandy’s blood – we don’t see any remaining signs of cancer in her body. While we’re optimistic about her future, it’s important to approach this with cautious optimism as further research is needed to understand the long-term outcomes.”

A Journey of Resilience and Innovation

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosed in both men and women in the United States, with increasing numbers of people being diagnosed under the age of 50. When it metastasizes, it typically spreads to the liver or lungs, leaving few options for possible survival. Cancers of the lungs or those that travel to the lungs result in the most cancer-related deaths in the U.S.

Originally from Lake Zurich, Ill., Wilk moved to Minnesota where she works with the kindergarten through fifth grade teaching staff of Bloomington as an elementary curriculum and instruction specialist. In her spare time, Wilk enjoys running, the arts and attending sporting events with her partner and brothers.

In 2017, at the age of 34, Wilk thought she had food poisoning, but persistent symptoms led to a diagnosis of stage 4 colorectal cancer that had already spread to the liver. Wilk was given approximately two years to live. Treatments included a partial colon resection, chemotherapy, liver ablations and radiation beads on the liver, before receiving a liver transplant from her younger brother, Adam, in 2020. But six months later, the cancer returned – this time to the lungs.

“I traveled to almost every major health system across the country, and they all told me there was nothing more they could do,” said Wilk. “I believe in forward-thinking and was not going to take ‘no’ for answer, so when I inquired about the DREAM program at Northwestern Medicine, I was ecstatic that they were ready and eager to help me live.”

Wilk’s partner, Chris Withers, is a television producer for the Chicago White Sox, so Chicago was already like a second home to the couple. During the offseason, they live in Minnesota, but for Mandy, much of the summer is spent between Minnesota and Chicago. In March 2024, Wilk traveled to Chicago for a lung transplant evaluation and was then listed the day after Memorial Day. On June 3, Wilk received new lungs and one week later, she was doing so well that she was discharged from Northwestern Memorial on June 10 – which happened to be her 42nd birthday.

“Throughout my eight-year journey of battling cancer, the one thing I’ve always wanted to do was ‘ring the bell,’ signaling my completion of cancer treatment,” said Wilk. “Many doctors told me I’d never be able to ring it, so when my lung transplant social worker made it happen on my birthday, there was no greater feeling. I was finally able to celebrate being cancer-free.”

A New Chapter for Patients Facing Terminal Diagnoses

Wilk was recently given the “green light” by her lung transplant pulmonologist to start running again. While she continues to recover in Chicago for the next several months, Wilk can be found walking and jogging along Chicago’s lakefront trail. Her new goal is to one day run a marathon.

“Mandy has flown through the recovery process. Typically, lung transplant patients require several days, if not weeks, in a rehabilitation center, but because Mandy was young and made exercise a priority before transplant, rehab wasn’t needed,” said Catherine Myers, MD, lung transplant pulmonologist with the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute. “When Mandy asked me about being able to run again, I told her to start slow and gradually build up speed. Her determination has no limits, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mandy cross another finish line in the near future. As a runner myself, if Mandy decides to run the Chicago Marathon someday, I would love to run alongside her.”

Giving Back and Inspiring Others

Beyond her medical journey, Wilk is passionate about art and uses the skill to help pay it forward. Four years ago, her brother Adam started Mandy’s Foundation which has raised more than $60,000 for the art therapy program at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. Since Mandy’s career has been dedicated to helping children, the goal is to provide positive experiences to children who are hospitalized during cancer treatment.  

“I have been given a new gift of life not once, but twice – first with my new liver, and now with my new lungs,” said Wilk. “When you’re diagnosed with cancer, often times you’re treated like a number and not a person, but my team at Northwestern Medicine, from the nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists and even the food service workers, all saw and treated me as Mandy. I hope my story inspires others to continue advocating for themselves.”

About the DREAM Program

The Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute is currently the only clinical site in the nation offering this treatment for lung cancer patients without any options. Using lessons learned from pioneering COVID-19 lung transplantation in the United States, surgeons developed the novel surgical technique to clear the cancer during surgery while minimizing the risk of spread that has plagued prior such attempts at other hospitals.

“Unlike the conventional technique of sequential transplants, this innovative technique involves putting the patient on full heart and lung bypass, delicately taking both cancer-ridden lungs out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, washing the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer, and then transplanting new lungs,” said Dr. Bharat. “These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so we must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream. We believe this technique can help reduce the risk of recurrence.”

To date, surgeons have performed more than 40 successful lung transplants for cancer patients under the DREAM program. The outcomes of the program’s patients are being tracked in a research registry also called DREAM.

“While we are encouraged by success stories like Mandy's, it's important to recognize that this is a highly specialized procedure that may not be suitable for all patients with metastatic cancer,” added Dr. Bharat. “Careful evaluation and selection are key to ensuring the best possible outcomes.”

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the referral line at 844.639.5864. 

For more information about Northwestern Medicine’s lung transplant programs, as well as advanced therapies, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – May 13, 2024 – For the first time at Northwestern Medicine, surgeons have successfully performed a double-lung transplant on a patient who had the one lung damaged from lung cancer and the other damaged by COVID-19. The patient, 56-year-old Arthur “Art” Gillespie of Chicago, has worked in law enforcement for nearly 30 years, most recently as a captain with the University of Chicago Police Department. When doctors at other health systems told Gillespie there was nothing more they could do for him, he turned to the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, where surgeons pioneered lung transplantation for COVID-19 patients in the United States and using those same lessons, developed lung transplantation for select patients with advanced lung cancer through a first-of-its-kind clinical program called the Double Lung Replacement and Multidisciplinary Care (DREAM) Program.

“Arthur was in a unique situation because he got a severe case of COVID in March 2020 right around the same time he was diagnosed with lung cancer,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute who performed Gillespie’s transplant. “When Arthur first came to see us in September 2023, even though he looked physically strong, he could barely speak a single sentence without getting short of breath or take a few steps before having to sit down. The pressure inside the lungs had also increased to a point that it was causing heart failure, and his only option for survival was a double-lung transplant.”

“Four years after the start of the pandemic, COVID still has an impact on patients, but in a different way,” said Rade Tomic, MD, pulmonologist and medical director of the Lung Transplant Program. “While lung transplants for acute damage from COVID is quite rare these days, we’re now starting to see patients who may have had moderate to severe cases of COVID coming in with signs of lung fibrosis. The scarring of the lungs gets more heightened in patients who recovered from COVID but get another respiratory infection like COVID, RSV or influenza because it compounds the original damage that COVID caused.”

When the pandemic started, Gillespie never imagined it would lead to him needing a double-lung transplant, or the impact the virus would have on his family.

“I lost my dad, uncle and cousin to COVID,” said Gillespie. “In February 2020, my dad and I went to visit my uncle in a nursing facility and by early March, we were all sick. I was hospitalized for 12 days with a high fever and cough, and during that time, they were taking scans of my lungs, which showed stage 1 lung cancer on my right lung. I had no symptoms of lung cancer, so in a way – because of COVID – we were able to catch the cancer early.”

After being discharged from the hospital, Gillespie started chemotherapy treatments and underwent surgery at another health system in November 2020 to have two-thirds of his right lung removed. His intent was to get better and return to work, but that never happened. For the next three years, Gillespie continued physical therapy treatments and worked out at his home gym, but his body was getting weaker, and he needed supplemental oxygen daily.

“Despite my best efforts, I could feel myself going backwards. My right remaining lung was damaged from lung cancer, and my left lung was damaged from COVID. My circumstances were exactly what the Canning Thoracic Institute was built for, and I knew I needed to seek a second opinion,” said Gillespie.

In September 2023, Gillespie had his first consultation at Northwestern Medicine, and by November he was listed for a double-lung transplant. On January 6, Gillespie received his new lungs at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and continues getting stronger every day. May 12-18 marks National Police Week, and while Gillespie still isn’t sure if or when he can return to work as a police captain, he hopes his story resonates with fellow officers to prioritize their health.  

“My recovery from the double-lung transplant has been easier than my recovery from lung cancer surgery,” said Gillespie. “I want my story to serve as a lesson to others – especially those in law enforcement. When you’re a public servant, it’s easy to become distracted with the routine of the job. You’re used to putting others before your own health, but we have to be equally proactive and seek a second opinion when we know something isn’t right. A second opinion saved my life and I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for Northwestern Medicine. The lung transplant team listened to my concerns, didn’t dismiss them, and gave me a sense of direction.”

“Arthur is a fighter. He had two major problems – lung cancer and COVID. Historically, both would be considered non-salvageable for lung transplantation, but we were able to treat both of those conditions with a double-lung transplant procedure,” said Dr. Bharat. “Despite being told ‘no’ by other doctors, Arthur had the courage and determination to keep searching for answers. I feel honored that we were able to help him since he spent so many years helping the community as a police captain.”

 To date, the Canning Thoracic Institute has performed more than 45 lung transplants for COVID-19 patients, and more than 40 lung transplants for lung cancer patients. The Institute is currently the only clinical site in the nation offering this treatment for lung cancer patients without any other options.

Cancers of the lung are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States in both men and women with more people dying of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined. Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the referral line at 844.639.5864. For more information about Northwestern Medicine’s transplant programs, as well as advanced therapies, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – March 28, 2024 – For the first time at Northwestern Medicine, surgeons have successfully performed a combined lung-liver transplant on a patient with advanced lung cancer who had limited time to live. The patient, 69-year-old Gary Gibbon, MD, a pulmonologist, allergist and immunologist from Santa Monica, Cali., was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer in March 2023. After undergoing chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy at a California hospital, Dr. Gibbon was admitted to the intensive care unit, where he learned the immunotherapy had not only permanently destroyed his lungs, but also caused irreparable damage to his liver. His only option for survival would be traveling to Chicago for a combined lung-liver transplant, where a first-of-its-kind clinical program called Double Lung Replacement and Multidisciplinary Care (DREAM) was established for select patients with advanced lung cancers that do not respond to conventional treatments. In September 2023, Dr. Gibbon received his new lungs and liver from the same donor, and six months after surgery, Dr. Gibbon still has no signs of cancer in his body and doesn’t require any further cancer therapy.

“To our knowledge, this is the first known case in the nation where a patient with advanced lung cancer has successfully received a combined lung-liver transplant,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute who performed Dr. Gibbon’s lung transplant. “The purpose of DREAM is to help patients with some forms of late-stage cancers that are only limited to the lungs through double-lung transplantation if conventional or experimental treatments have failed. In Dr. Gibbon’s case, he received all possible treatments for his aggressive lung cancer. Unfortunately, not only did his cancer not get treated, but he also developed severe damage to his lungs and liver that was unsustainable with life. He was running out of time, and the DREAM program was his only option for survival.”  

“Even though a combined lung-liver transplant for advanced lung cancer had never been done before, our team was confident we could do this, and more importantly, Dr. Gibbon had full confidence in us,” said Satish Nadig, MD, PhD, transplant surgeon and director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center who performed Dr. Gibbon’s liver transplant. “We’re not just here to do transplant – we’re here to change the world of transplantation by innovating and moving the field forward. Out-of-the-box thinking is exactly what we hang our hat on at Northwestern Medicine, and without this procedure, I can confidently say that Dr. Gibbon would not be here today, cancer-free, breathing on his own, celebrating his 69^th birthday.”

Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, Dr. Gibbon moved to Santa Monica where he was in private practice for 33 years until his recent hospitalization. He’s also an associate professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. In March 2023, Dr. Gibbon started coughing and losing weight; a chest X-ray confirmed a mass with a diagnosis of stage 3 lung cancer. He proceeded with chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation, and by mid-July he was hospitalized with septic shock, pneumonia and multiple organ failure. His lungs had become fibrotic due to the cancer treatment, and he was fighting for his life in a Los Angeles intensive care unit.

“As a pulmonologist, I never imagined I’d ever need a lung transplant – let alone for lung cancer,” said Dr. Gibbon. “While my doctors in California had done everything they could, we knew there was only one place in the entire country that could give me a fighting chance, and after speaking with Dr. Bharat, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Dr. Gibbon met the criteria to receive a double-lung transplant through our DREAM program, but as the preliminary evaluation was performed prior to his acceptance to Northwestern Medicine, our team discovered that he had also developed liver cirrhosis from the immunotherapy. We had to modify our DREAM program and work with Dr. Nadig’s team to formulate a pathway for Dr. Gibbon to receive not only a double-lung transplant, but a concurrent liver transplant. Fortunately, we were able to do it just in time for Dr. Gibbon to receive this first-of-its-kind procedure,” said Dr. Bharat.

On Sept. 10, the then 68-year-old was transported to Chicago via a four-hour medical flight and waited for new organs from his ICU bed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. After spending 12 days on the transplant waitlist, Dr. Gibbon received his new lungs shortly before midnight on Sept. 26, and his new liver in the early hours on Sept. 27.

Drs. Bharat and Nadig worked together during the 10-hour procedure. While the new lungs were put in first, the donor liver was kept alive outside the body thanks to new technology called liver perfusion – or “liver in a box.” The liver was attached to a machine that pumps warm, oxygenated and nutrient-enriched blood through the organ. With the liver was on the pump, the team could assess its function to ensure the liver was ideal for transplantation.

“Transplantation is ever evolving and we’re embarking upon the era of technology. Dr. Bharat anticipated that the lung transplant would be extremely challenging due to the size of Dr. Gibbon’s tumor and the different types of treatments, including radiation, to the lungs and chest which would result in the lungs getting fused to the surrounding structures. To give Dr. Bharat sufficient time to meticulously remove the damaged lungs and all the cancer, we used the new liver perfusion technology through which we were able to keep the liver alive outside the body for an extended duration,” said Dr. Nadig. “Dr. Gibbon’s transplant took so many resources and teams across multiple departments at multiple health systems. To leave his ICU bed in California, travel to Chicago, get him listed, then transplanted, while using technologies and techniques that aren’t common, took extreme efforts. Northwestern Medicine handles complicated cases very well.”

To date, the Canning Thoracic Institute (CTI) has performed more than 30 lung transplants for patients under the DREAM program, including several with terminal stage IV lung cancer and one in which cancer from another organ had spread to the lungs. Using lessons learned from pioneering COVID-19 lung transplantation in the United States, CTI surgeons developed the novel surgical technique to clear the cancer during surgery while minimizing the risk of spread that has plagued prior such attempts at other hospitals.

“Unlike the conventional technique of sequential transplants, this innovative technique involves putting the patient on full heart and lung bypass, delicately taking both cancer-ridden lungs out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, washing the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer, and then putting new lungs in,” said Dr. Bharat. “These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so we must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream. We believe this technique can help reduce the risk of recurrence, which we learned through our experience with pioneering COVID-19 lung transplants.”

The outcomes of the program’s patients are being tracked in a research registry also called DREAM. Dr. Gibbon is grateful to have his name added to the list and is even more appreciative to celebrate his birthday (March 27) and National Doctors’ Day (March 30) with two of the physicians who helped save his life. To date, the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute is the only place in the nation offering this treatment for patients without any other hope.

“I’ve been a physician for decades, and we tend to be conservative at times with our treatment plans, which is why the enormity of the science that went into this procedure is awe-inspiring to me,” said Dr. Gibbon. “As a physician, I knew I was in the right place. I wasn’t just stepping on the moon by myself. It took surgeons, oncologists, transplant specialists, nurses, respiratory therapists and most importantly, my donor, to help me get my ‘Triple L’ – two lungs and a liver. This DREAM program is new territory for transplantation and the fact that I could experience it and have a wonderful outcome makes me feel so blessed. I wouldn’t be here today without Northwestern Medicine.”

“Because Dr. Gibbon is a pulmonologist and allergy specialist, he’s familiar with lung diseases, which made this case even more special,” said Dr. Bharat. “As physicians helping another physician, we feel very proud that we were able to do something that hopefully opens the doors for future patients who would otherwise not survive.”

Cancers of the lung are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States with more people dying of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined. Lung cancer patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the referral line at 844.639.5864. For more information about Northwestern Medicine’s transplant programs, as well as advanced therapies, visit nm.org.  

CHICAGO, IL – February 13, 2024 – February is Heart Month, a time when people are encouraged to focus on heart health. But what happens when the heart stops? Inside the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the nurses are going above and beyond with a simple gesture that involves a “heartbeat in a bottle.”

In the summer of 2023, Northwestern Medicine clinical nurses Hira Malik and Lydia Hillary were caring for a patient who was actively dying. The patient had been in the MICU for several days, and the patient’s family was extremely grateful for everything the nurses were doing. As the patient was nearing their final breath, Malik remembered something she learned in nursing school called “heartbeat in a bottle,” where the patient’s last few steady heartbeats from the EKG machine are printed off, placed in a glass bottle, and a name tag is attached with ribbon.

“In the ICU, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw death much more frequently, and a lot of the deaths were lonely due to visitor restrictions at the time,” said Malik. “I remember thinking, now that family is able to come and be with loved ones, is there anything we can give them to remember them by?”

At the time, Malik and Hillary didn’t have a glass bottle or ribbon on hand, so they improvised and used a clean, empty pill bottle, along with the strings from a surgical mask to attach a name tag. They gave the “heartbeat in a bottle” to the patient’s spouse who was extremely grateful for the gesture, and it offered closure to the patient’s family. 

“The family really enjoyed it and gave Hira a hug when she presented it to them,” said Hillary. “A lot of times, the ICU can be a scary place for patients and their loved ones. That’s one of our main roles as ICU nurses, is to help walk our patients and their families through this transition.”

Khalilah Gates, MD, a pulmonary and critical care specialist in the MICU, noticed Malik and Hillary’s kind gesture. Dr. Gates spoke with other physicians on the unit, and they agreed to purchase the necessary supplies for “heartbeat in a bottle” so the nurses could continue doing it for families in the future.

“Our nurses are really the heart and soul of what we do here in the MICU, in fact, they’re what critical care medicine is all about,” said Dr. Gates, who is part of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute. “The nurses are always at the bedside, taking care of patients and interacting with families during some of the darkest moments. ‘Heartbeat in a bottle’ demonstrates the empathy and sympathy our nurses have during the transition from life to death, which is very important.”

To date, the MICU nurses have created approximately three dozen “heartbeat in a bottle” keepsakes with the new supplies, which includes glass bottles, purple name tags and string. 

“There have been so many beautiful memories, but one that stands out, is when we presented a ‘heartbeat in a bottle’ to a patient’s family, and they were so moved by the keepsake that they requested ten more bottles for the rest of their family,” said Hillary. “It helps me to know that the family of my patient will remember the care their loved one received during those final moments.”

“No two deaths are ever the same, and from an ICU nursing perspective, we want each patient to die with dignity, in the most painless manner, surrounded by familiar voices and family. It’s one of the greatest comforts we can offer them,” added Malik. “My hope is that when families look at that little keepsake, it reminds them of all the precious, happy memories that define their loved one.”

CHICAGO — When Michael DiLillo’s phone rang early on a Saturday morning, he was not prepared for the life-altering news awaiting him on the other end. The previous day he had undergone a series of cardiac tests and now his cardiologist was calling on the weekend.

“We were home babysitting our grandchildren when I saw he was calling. I remember him saying ‘I need to tell you something important. I hope you’re sitting down.’ That’s when I knew we were facing something serious,” recalled DiLillo, 69, a resident of St. Charles, Ill., in Chicago’s western suburbs.

For several months, DiLillo had noticed a slight tightness in his chest. He saw several physicians who told him he was going through the normal process of aging, but he wasn’t convinced.

“I was experiencing some chest issues – not severe or to the point where it limited my activity, but I knew something wasn’t quite right,” said DiLillo, who kept searching for answers. “When I got an appointment with Dr. Severino, he ordered tests and figured it out very quickly.”

When Michael J. Severino, MD, cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, called DiLillo on that Saturday morning, he informed him that the symptoms were the result of a large mass encroaching into his heart. He told his patient to head to the emergency department quickly to undergo further testing.

“When I saw the test results, I had to take a few minutes and decide how I was going to handle this because it was an earth-shattering result for the patient,” said Dr. Severino, who practices at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital and Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital. “I’ve been in practice almost 30 years and I’ve never seen this type of tumor in this location.”

The tumor was growing into and causing damage to DiLillo’s heart. Treatment would require extensive surgery to not only remove the mass, but to also repair the damage to his heart. He consulted with surgeons at multiple hospitals, but none were willing to take on the surgery because of its complexity and risk.

“No one wanted to the do the surgery because they thought it was too risky. One surgeon said, ‘I can’t tell you with a clear conscience that you’ll survive surgery,’” said DiLillo. “I was scared beyond belief. I told [my wife] Marianne that we needed to put our financial house in order. I thought I was going to die.”

That was until he got to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. DiLillo first saw Samuel S. Kim, MD, thoracic surgeon at Canning Thoracic Institute, who brought his case to the hospital’s tumor board, a multidisciplinary team of experts who meet to discuss complex cancer patient cases and determine the best treatment plan.

“The patient was running on borrowed time and surgery was his only option for survival,” explained Dr. Kim. “At Northwestern Medicine, our surgeons are known for taking on the most difficult cases and we knew we had the right team in place to help Michael.”

After discussing DiLillo’s tumor, the tumor board agreed it would require the expertise of a cardiac surgeon given the damage to the heart, which is when Christopher K. Mehta, MD, cardiac surgeon at Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, was brought into the case.

“I’ve seen a handful of these tumors, and this was by far the most aggressive appearing cancer, especially from what we could tell from the imaging and the echocardiogram,” said Dr. Mehta. “The sheer size of the tumor, which was the size of a football, was causing it to invade the structures of the heart, which made it particularly challenging to deal with.”

Despite the tumor’s size and complexity of the surgery it would require, Dr. Mehta agreed to operate, but warned DiLillo and his family that it would not come without risk.

“The tumor was invading and compressing the pulmonary valve and the pulmonary artery, which move blood from the heart to the lungs,” said Dr. Mehta. “Once we removed the entire tumor, we would then be faced with having to reconstruct the heart in a way that he could live a normal life. It was a very involved surgical case.”

The surgical team operated for 12 hours removing the entire tumor then repairing the damage it caused to the structures of his heart, including rebuilding the pulmonary valve. For DiLillo’s family, the wait was agony.

“My kids were there with me, and we were all scared. It was a rollercoaster. We had ourselves prepared that he wasn’t going to make it,” said Marianne DiLillo, Michael’s wife of 41 years. “When Dr. Mehta came out and said everything went well, we couldn’t believe it. He let us all hug him and was so positive about the surgery but told us the recovery was still going to be a long journey.”

For Dr. Mehta and team, the relief was shared especially after seeing the tumor’s true size once it was removed. The tumor weighed more than 1.5 pounds, which is more than double the weight of the average human heart.

“When we opened Michael’s chest, you couldn’t see his heart because the tumor was so massive. We all breathed a sigh of relief when this surgery was complete,” said Dr. Mehta. “Michael still had a long road ahead of him, but we gave him an opportunity to keep fighting.”

Following surgery, DiLillo remained in the intensive care unit (ICU) for five weeks then transferred to an acute rehab facility for more than two months.

“From the time we had the surgery planned until several weeks after was a blur to me,” said DiLillo. “Having Marianne by my side and making big decisions was insurmountable because I could have never been able to function on my own.”

Primary tumors of the heart are extremely rare with malignant cardiac tumors being even more uncommon. Less than 10% of all primary heart tumors are cancerous affecting approximately 8,000 people worldwide. By comparison, breast cancer impacts more than 240,000 people each year in the United States alone. When cancers do occur in and around the heart, most often the cancer started elsewhere and spread to the heart.

“When the pathologists got back to us about the type of tumor, they were very surprised to find that it was a liposarcoma, which is a rare type of cancer that starts in soft tissues,” said Dr. Mehta. “While Michael previously had a liposarcoma in his leg more than ten years earlier, the pathologist felt this was a primary tumor meaning it had started in the chest and then invaded into the heart. These represent about one percent of cancers of the heart, so it’s a very rare diagnosis.”

While DiLillo’s recovery has been long and challenging, he continues to grow stronger every day and recently enjoyed celebrating his first Christmas since the surgery with Marianne, their three grown children and their spouses and five grandchildren with number six on the way in March.

“You get a whole new perspective in how important every day is – you don’t want to waste time, you don’t know how much time you have,” said DiLillo when reflecting on the surgery and his recovery. “I have a second lease on life. I feel blessed that we found the right people who could help us. Dr. Severino found it when others said I was fine. Dr. Mehta took it on when others said, ‘I can’t help you.’ Northwestern saved my life.”

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After completing boot camp at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, Ill., Patterson was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, Calif. With three western Pacific tours on the USS Carl Vinson, Patterson had the unique experience of living on an aircraft carrier while visiting more places in four years than many people visit in a lifetime.

“I’m very proud of my time in the Navy and very thankful for the experiences it gave me,” said Patterson, who now lives in Park Forest, Illinois. “Those tours gave me the opportunity to see the world. We went everywhere from Hawaii to Australia, Singapore, the Philippines and more. It was like a dream vacation while living on a city at sea.”

When Patterson discharged from the Navy, he returned to California for 10 years before returning to federal service taking a role with the United States Postal Service (USPS). He worked for USPS for nearly 25 years when he was offered a promotion that would bring him to Minnesota. A year and half after his move, Patterson started to notice changes in his health.

“It came on very suddenly. I was working in the mailroom and started feeling short of breath when walking just short distances from one side of the room to the other. I knew something was wrong,” said Patterson, who left work and drove to the nearest urgent care clinic.  

After being told he needed a higher level of care, Patterson drove himself to the emergency department at the nearest academic medical center in Minneapolis. He would not see the outside of a hospital again for three weeks.

“I lost consciousness in the ER that night and when I woke up the next morning, they told me I had 13 TIAs, or miniature strokes, overnight,” said Patterson. “The doctors told me that these were warning signs and the big one will come if I didn’t seek treatment immediately.”

Patterson’s health continued to decline, and he spent the next two months in and out of the hospital. He was soon diagnosed as being in congestive heart failure (CHF) with his heart functioning at less than five percent. His best option for survival would be a heart transplant or left ventricular assist device (LVAD).

He made the decision to return to Chicago where he had family support from his sister. They drove from Minnesota directly to Jesse Brown VA Medical Center where he would meet Sarah E. Chuzi, MD, cardiologist at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center and at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, who had recently established an onsite advanced heart failure clinic for veterans at Jesse Brown. Patterson would be in and out of the hospital for the next three months while his medical team assessed his condition.

“Dwayne got sick very quickly. When I first saw him in clinic, he could barely get onto the exam table without shortness of breath,” said Dr. Chuzi, who first began caring for patients at Jesse Brown VA during her medical residency. “If you have taken care of a veteran, or met a veteran, you know that they are very stoic, and they are unlikely to complain. So, I knew, just looking in his eyes, that he was very sick and really scared and that he needed an intervention quickly.”

Dr. Chuzi and a multidisciplinary team of Northwestern Medicine and VA clinicians began the process of evaluating Patterson for a heart transplant. They soon determined that he was likely to benefit, so he was added to the heart transplant waiting list in March. Patterson was too sick to go home, so he was admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital to wait for a donor heart, which came in April 2023.

“I remember the day the call came. I was in the hospital and not feeling well, then they told me, ‘We found you a heart and we want to schedule surgery,’” recalls Patterson. “You know, I never feared. I’m a man of faith, which guided me. The sickness had just come on so fast. But I knew I had the best medical team at one of the best hospitals for a heart transplant and at the VA. I was ready.”

The advanced heart failure collaboration between Northwestern Medicine and Jesse Brown VA Medical Center is a continuation of a longstanding relationship between the two organizations. For more than 77 years, medical residents from Northwestern have rotated through the VA during their medical training, the longest of such academic affiliation in the VA system.

“The VA system has been involved in the training of two thirds of the physicians in the United States and the partnership between Jesse Brown and Northwestern is where this all began,” said Sarah Unterman, MD, Chief of Staff at  Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. “Dwayne’s experience and the collaboration between our VA clinicians and the Northwestern Medicine teams exemplifies the value that these partnerships bring to our veterans and to the physicians who are so privileged to care for them.”

Dr. Chuzi credits her medical training at Jesse Brown as the inspiration for wanting to dedicate her career to caring for veterans.

“The VA has always had a special place in my heart. Mainly because of the patients, the veterans,” said Dr. Chuzi, who has veterans in her family. “They are so resilient and strong, and they have served our country. They are incredibly deserving of good care.”

The veteran patient population faces many health care challenges due to social determinants of health, such as lack of access to transportation, neighborhood crime, financial insecurity, and housing instability, which can have a negative impact on their health. They are also a patient population with high rates of risk factors for heart failure such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity.

“Heart failure in general is extremely burdensome to the population at large, but especially to our veterans because these risk factors for heart failure are so prevalent,” said Dr. Chuzi. “This is a population where there is a ton of advanced disease, but if you don’t have someone necessarily who is specifically trained in looking for patients with this disease, you might not find it. We’re hopeful that our program will help more veterans get the advanced treatments they need.”

In less than a year, more than 10 patients have been referred to Northwestern Medicine from the Jesse Brown VA for advanced heart failure surgical therapies, with eight patients receiving LVADs in just six months.

While Patterson faced some initial challenges adapting to life with his new heart, today he is feeling better than he has in years. He has since retired from the postal service and enjoying time reconnecting with his friends and family in the Chicago area. His heart donor and their family are never far from his mind.

“Like my sister says, someone died for you to live. So, I always had to keep that in the back of my mind,” said Patterson. “I would just say thank you for this blessing. I have a second chance at life now.”

CHICAGO – November 8, 2023 – For the first time at Northwestern Medicine, surgeons used an artificial lung and breast implants to save the life of a Missouri man who vaped for years, caught the flu and needed a double-lung transplant when his lungs became infected.

The innovative procedure happened in late May, as Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute surgeons removed 34-year-old David “Davey” Bauer’s infected lungs, created an artificial lung to keep him alive, placed DD breast implants inside his chest cavity to keep the heart in place, and listed Bauer for a double-lung transplant, finding a match within 24-hours. Bauer was discharged from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in late September and continues to recover at optimal pace in Chicago.

“Davey’s case is remarkable because it shows that we can keep patients alive after removing their lungs through new technology, which can be transformative for many critically ill patients,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute. “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. I think it’s going to open a lot of doors for many patients who have no other options.”

Bauer, who enjoys snowboarding, skateboarding, gaming and golfing, works in landscaping and hardscaping in De Soto, Mo., which is near St. Louis. He started smoking cigarettes when he was 21 years old and typically smoked a pack of cigarettes a day until he switched to vaping in 2014.

“Vaping felt better, and I thought it was the healthier alternative, but in all honesty, I found it more addicting than cigarettes,” said Bauer.

In April, Bauer started experiencing shortness of breath, was diagnosed with influenza A (the flu) and developed a lung infection that was resistant to antibiotics. Bauer didn’t receive the flu shot, and up until that point, had never been seriously ill. He was admitted to a hospital in St. Louis and placed on ECMO, a device that does the work of the heart and the lungs, but he continued to decline and a double-lung transplant was his only option for survival.

“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 Rade Tomic, MD, pulmonologist and medical director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute Lung Transplant Program. “When we received a call from Davey’s medical team in St. Louis, we thought we could help him, but it was also very clear he wouldn’t survive the transplant in his current condition. 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. This was unchartered territory for us, but our team knew if we couldn’t help Davey, no one else could.”

The surgical team quickly came up with a strategy to remove the infected lungs and engineer an “artificial lung” that could attach to Bauer’s body, keeping the blood flowing to the heart, while also keeping his brain and other organs perfused. With both lungs removed, surgeons needed a way to keep Bauer’s heart from physically collapsing inside the chest cavity, and that’s where the idea for DD breast implants came into the picture.     

“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,” explained Dr. Bharat. “I never imagined we’d be using DD breast implants to help bridge a patient to lung transplantation, but our team is known for taking on the most difficult cases and thinking outside the box to save lives.”

Once the infected lungs were removed on May 26, Bauer’s body immediately started clearing the infection and he was listed for a double-lung transplant. The team received an offer for new lungs the following day (May 27), and on May 28, the breast implants were taken out and the donor lungs were put in. Bauer spent several months recovering in the intensive care unit before being discharged to rehabilitation therapy in late September.

“Still to this day, I can’t believe Davey lived without any lungs. He was breathing, blood pumping without lungs,” said Bauer’s girlfriend and caretaker, Susan Gore. “While we waited inside his hospital room at Northwestern, I would take a breath in and say, ‘one breath for me and one for Davey.’ It’s hard to wrap my mind around it, and I’m still in awe that Davey was able to do this – it truly shows his strength.”

“I’m so grateful to be alive and know I wouldn’t be here today without the support of my girlfriend, family, friends and my Northwestern Medicine transplant team who never gave up on me,” said Bauer. “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. If I could go back in time, I never would have picked up a cigarette or vape pen, and I hope my story can help encourage others to quit, because I wouldn’t wish this difficult journey on anyone.”

As for being the first Northwestern Medicine lung transplant patient to have both lungs removed and breast implants temporarily put in their place, Bauer jokes that his new nickname is “DD Davey.”

“I plan to get a t-shirt made that says ‘DD Davey’ on it and change all my gaming profiles,” he said. “But in all seriousness, I’m so proud to be the first Northwestern Medicine patient to undergo this innovative procedure, and I hope this medical first paves the way for more critically ill patients to receive lung transplants in the near future.”

Bauer will remain in Chicago for the next year so his transplant team can continue to closely monitor him. While he misses St. Louis (especially Cardinals’ baseball games), he’s looking forward to enjoying the holidays in a new city with his new lungs. To learn more about Bauer’s medical journey, visit his GoFundMe page.

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the referral line at 844.639.5864. For more information about Northwestern Medicine’s lung transplant program, as well as advanced therapies, visit nm.org. 

Chicago, IL – November 1, 2023 – Driven by the ongoing opioid epidemic and the sharing of needles, hepatitis C cases have been rising in the United States over the last decade, with the highest infection rates among young adults, including women of childbearing age. Without treatment, hepatitis C can lead to acute and chronic hepatitis, increasing the risk of liver cancer, liver failure and other conditions. During pregnancy, hepatitis C has been associated with low birthweight, intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy and preterm birth. The standard of care for treating hepatitis C in a pregnant person is to initiate treatment postpartum, which can start as soon as the person gives birth, but this approach has significant limitations.

Under the guidance of specialists at Northwestern Medicine and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, an innovative treatment plan is now being offered during pregnancy, allowing the pregnant person to be cured of hepatitis C during the course of prenatal care, which may also substantially mitigate or even eliminate the risk of transmitting hepatis C to the baby.   

“Our goal is pretty simple – we want to improve the lives of pregnant patients with hepatitis C and their infants,” said Lynn Yee, MD, a maternal fetal medicine specialist and director of the Northwestern Medicine Women’s Infectious Disease Program. “Although treatment during pregnancy is not yet common, our professional societies support a shared decision-making process, including discussing with patients what is known versus unknown. We believe that by including pregnant people in hepatitis C research and treatment programs, we will work towards the public health goal of eliminating hepatitis C as well as addressing historical issues of excluding pregnant people from life-changing therapies.”

“There is still an overall lack of awareness among providers about the impact of hepatitis C in pregnancy and its transmission to infants,” said Ravi Jhaveri, MD, pediatrician and division head of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Lurie Children’s Hospital. “Because hepatitis C acquisition is often associated with injection drug use, there’s still a lot of stigma and judgement among providers towards patients that prevents them from having open conversations. We hope every pregnant patient is tested for hepatitis C and those who test positive are quickly offered treatment.”

Testing and Treating Pregnant Patients

The greatest risk of acquiring hepatitis C belongs to people who work with human blood, body fluids or needles; use IV or intravenous drugs; have unprotected sex; are living with HIV; and are born to mothers with hepatitis C. Most people with hepatitis C have no symptoms, which is why testing during pregnancy is so important.

In 2020, guidelines implemented by the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommend all pregnant people are tested for hepatitis C antibodies during routine prenatal care. Patients who have evidence of hepatitis C antibodies undergo further testing and are referred to the Northwestern Medicine Women’s Infectious Disease Program. At this specialized program, for patients with evidence of chronic hepatitis C, the first step of the treatment plan is in-depth counseling and shared decision-making about the risks, benefits and alternatives to treatment during versus after pregnancy. As the first in Chicago and one of a few programs in the country to offer a treatment plan for eligible patients, Northwestern Medicine is a referral center for pregnant people with hepatitis C.

“Although treatment during the postpartum period is a great plan for many patients, there are significant limitations of this approach,” said Dr. Yee. “Many people lose touch with health care after giving birth, due to a wide range of factors. For example, in many states, pregnant people who have Medicaid lose their Medicaid 60 days after giving birth, and so there may be limited time to initiate and complete treatment. For other people, the competing priorities and burdens of being a parent take precedent over care for one’s own health. Yet, we know from ample research that pregnancy is a period of enhanced engagement in health care and motivation for improving health, making it the ideal window of opportunity for treatment. And not only does treatment during pregnancy mean that a pregnant person can be cured of hepatitis C during the course of prenatal care, but it is also highly likely that achieving cure before giving birth can substantially mitigate or eliminate the risk of transmitting hepatitis C to the baby, which would represent an incredible public health advancement.”

When patients desire treatment, physicians and infectious diseases pharmacists work on obtaining insurance coverage for treatment. Medications are then initiated, which are once-daily pills taken for 8-12 weeks. Lab surveillance is done before, during, and after the treatment course, in order to ensure there are no side effects and to monitor for viral cure. The experts at the Northwestern Medicine Women’s Infectious Disease Program also collaborate closely on research involving the responsible inclusion of pregnant people in hepatitis C research and treatment programs, and are able to refer patients to research programs when desired.

To date, specialists at the Women’s Infectious Disease Program have treated approximately five pregnant patients with hepatitis C. In all cases, patients have completed their treatment course during pregnancy and have achieved sustained virologic response – also known as a cure.

One of those patients, Kareena Wasserman, was shocked to learn she tested positive for hepatitis C while pregnant with her second child. She underwent the treatment plan during her third trimester which cleared the virus, and Wasserman delivered a healthy baby girl at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital.

“I honestly have no idea how I contracted hepatitis C, especially since my husband and oldest child don’t have the virus,” said Wasserman. “But when Dr. Yee told me there was a path for a cure – not just for myself, but also the baby – I knew the reward outweighed any risk. I want other patients to know they’re not alone, and there is a safe treatment option available at Northwestern Medicine.”

New CDC Testing Recommendations for Infants

While infants can clear a hepatitis C virus at a higher rate than adults, if left untested and untreated for several years, it can cause scarring and fibrosis in the liver. Until now, testing in infants was often delayed until after 18 months of age due to interference for hepatitis C antibodies passed from mother to infant during late stages of the pregnancy, and the long delay meant most infants were never tested.

This November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is set to publish new guidelines for testing hepatitis C in infants. Dr. Jhaveri co-authored a commentary piece about the new CDC testing recommendations, scheduled to publish in PEDIATRICS on November 1.

“The CDC has simplified and clarified their testing guidance. Infants with hepatitis C exposure during pregnancy should have one single hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA PCR test between 2-6 months of age. If the result is negative and they don’t have hepatitis C, they don’t need further testing. If the result is positive, they should be connected with a provider who can follow them, retest at a later date and ultimately get them treated by age three,” said Dr. Jhaveri. “I think these new recommendations will significantly improve our ability to do the right testing. They will reduce confusion among providers about which test to send when, cut down on the time to ultimately test and capitalize on existing newborn visits to send the testing.”

Northwestern Medicine and Lurie Children’s Hospital will soon be part of a national study conducted by the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Network (IMPAACT), which will enroll eligible patients who are pregnant with confirmed hepatitis C and undergoing treatment.

The group also obtained CDC funding to design a video-based learning model for physicians to learn about the key aspects of hepatitis C in pregnancy and early infancy, how to improve decision-making conversations with patients, and how to start hepatitis C treatment.

“With our society's increased focus on social justice, we would argue that there has been a long-standing injustice here,” said Dr. Jhaveri. “Pregnant patients have been excluded from hepatitis C research and treatment for reasons that are rooted in historical practices. We hope that our work helps address this injustice and allows pregnant patients to receive hepatitis C treatment easily and openly without the barriers that currently exist.”

To learn more about Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org and to learn more about Lurie Children’s Hospital, visit luriechildrens.org.

CHICAGO, IL – September 26, 2023 – Josh Burton was born in Guatemala and adopted as a baby by his mother, Kelly Burton. The 17-year-old grew up in Madison, Wis., where he became fascinated with dinosaurs and paleontology. In 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burton started having problems breathing and was diagnosed with pulmonary veno occlusive disease, a rare condition that causes the small veins in the lungs to narrow and impair blood flow. 

In the spring of 2021, at the age of 14, Burton received a double-lung transplant at a Wisconsin hospital in order to survive, but one year later, he contracted RSV, a common respiratory virus, and his new lungs started to fail. Retransplantation for new lungs is difficult – especially given Burton’s young age and the fact he was only one year out from the first transplant.

According to Burton’s mom, Kelly, more than 20 hospitals turned him away for a retransplant, until he came to Northwestern Medicine, whose lung transplant team is known for taking on the most difficult cases, including pioneering the first COVID lung transplants in the United States and starting a lung transplant clinical program for select patients with stage 4 lung cancer.  

After being accepted at Northwestern, Burton’s lung function quickly deteriorated, and he was hooked up to ECMO, a machine that does the work of the heart and lungs. Burton almost died several times and endured 13 “dry runs” – where surgeons received a call for new lungs, but once they inspected the donor lungs on site, they weren’t usable for Burton. Finally, on June 28, they found a perfect match and Burton underwent a successful surgery.

“In my entire career, I’ve never witnessed 13 dry runs for new lungs. It was a roller coaster of emotions for Josh’s family, but this can happen due to undetected pneumonia or other illnesses in the donor lungs,” explained Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute. “Josh was battling a bad viral infection, he was on ECMO for a long time, he was critically ill and most importantly – his anatomy was completely altered due to his previous lung transplant. Josh’s case was tricky for a number of reasons, but these are the types of cases our team takes on because we want to be known as a destination of hope.”

“Throughout this transplant journey, I could see Josh giving up, but the transplant team at Northwestern Medicine saved him, and he’s been rallying ever since. They are our heroes, no question,” said Kelly Burton.

Inside Burton’s hospital room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, dinosaurs were everywhere. Burton wants to be a paleontologist someday, but because of his transplants, he’s unable to work with dirt.

“Lung transplant patients are asked to avoid dirt because they have a higher risk of fungal infections than other solid-organ recipients, which can lead to pneumonia and other serious health issues. The lungs are the only organs exposed to outside environmental factors, therefore, putting lung transplant patients at higher risk. After transplant, patients should avoid working with dirt their entire lives,” said Dr. Bharat.   

Field Museum Scientists Showcase Paleo Work Without the Dirt

Burton absolutely loves visiting the Field Museum in Chicago which houses SUE the T. rex, one of the most famous fossils in the world. When the Field Museum learned how much Burton enjoys dinosaurs, they offered to make him an “honorary paleontologist for a day.” Jingmai O’Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles (who is also known as the “punk rock paleontologist”), and Bill Simpson, head of geological collections, wanted to show Burton that he can still be a paleontologist without working in the dirt.

“Training the next generation of paleontologists is one of the most rewarding and important aspects of my job,” said Dr. O’Connor. “I would really argue that a vast majority of methods and techniques that are utilized by paleontologists today, especially the most exciting and cutting-edge techniques, are all techniques that would be totally accessible to Josh. There are lots of fossils waiting to be studied and even new species to discover in our collections without going anywhere in the field.”

On Wednesday, Sept. 20, Dr. O’Connor and Simpson gave Burton an exclusive, behind the scenes tour of the Field Museum, letting him see and do things that are off limits to the public. 

The visit included:

-        Taking SUE’s skull out of its case and letting Burton interact with it up-close. Dr. O’Connor explained the scanning project she did to study the holes in SUE’s jaw; an example of how paleontologists can study dinosaurs without doing fieldwork/fossil prep that would be difficult with Burton’s medical condition. 

-        A special peek inside Dr. O’Connor’s lab to let Burton see fossil slides under the microscope and check 3D fossil footage on a computer screen.

-        A chance to see and interact with huge dinosaur bones and other fossils that are enormous – even Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson couldn’t pick them up.

With Burton now entering his senior year of high school, his mom calls this visit “crucial” to Burton deciding what his career path will be. She’s hopeful that despite her son’s transplants, he can still fulfill his dream of working with dinosaurs. 

“All kids tend to go through phases, but Josh never outgrew his love for dinosaurs. Because of his transplants, he’s been in school very little, so the fact he’s still interested in science is so important for his future. We will never forget this amazing experience at the Field Museum,” said Kelly Burton.

“I got to see SUE’s head out of its case – something that rarely happens – and that was such a highlight for me,” said Josh Burton. “When I was fourteen and had my first lung transplant, I gave up on my dream of being a paleontologist because I knew I couldn’t be around dust and dirt. So many medical centers turned me down for a second transplant, but Northwestern Medicine gave me a chance to live, to see my upcoming eighteenth birthday (this October), and to visualize a career path.”

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the referral line at 844.639.5864. For more information about Northwestern Medicine’s lung transplant program, as well as advanced therapies, visit nm.org. 

To learn more about Josh's journey, click here. 

Chicago – August 31, 2023 –  It was an emotional moment for Dan Spees of Lakewood, Ill., as the sound of the trumpet filled his Northwestern Medicine hospital room. Before receiving his double-lung transplant, Spees wondered if he would ever play again.

“I am so pleased to have this option back because I thought it was gone,” said Spees.

In 2018, the 64-year-old husband and father was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis (scarring of the lungs) caused by hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a rare immune disorder that triggers an allergic reaction when specific allergens are inhaled.

As the director of information technology for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and an avid trumpet player, Spees found it increasingly difficult to keep up with his career and hobbies as his dependence on supplemental oxygen grew. By April 2023, he had to put down the trumpet altogether.

Four months after retiring his instrument, on August 3, 2023, Spees underwent a double-lung transplant at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. When Northwestern Medicine occupational therapist Brittany Hatlestad, OTR/L, learned of Spees’ musical ability, she suggested involving the trumpet in his rehabilitative care.

“Playing trumpet requires the patient to take deep breaths in and forceful exhales out through the mouth, which is reintroducing the breathing pattern that we want our transplant patients to utilize,” Hatlestad said. “It was wonderful to know that what he loved to do was also improving those foundational skills.”

“Recovery after a lung transplant is a journey of rebuilding both physical strength and confidence,” added Catherine Myers, MD, pulmonologist with the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute. “Occupational therapists like Brittany are essential in this process, guiding patients to regain their independence and engage in activities that matter most to them. I am so happy Dan’s medical team could help him return to the life he loves.”

Hatlestad monitored Spees’ blood oxygen levels as he played. His nurses and family watched as he warmed up with a few scales. Then Spees played Joy to the World at an ideal blood oxygen level of 98 percent. After hugging his wife, Spees shared that he texted his band director and told him to expect him back in the first chair by January 2024.

“I was able to do much more than I thought I would be able to do,” said Spees. “It’s still a long way to get back to where I want to be, but I know I’m going to make it. I’m very, very happy.”

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the referral line at 844.639.5864. For more information about Northwestern Medicine’s lung transplant program, as well as advanced therapies, visit nm.org. 

Chicago, IL – August 29, 2023 – Receiving a diagnosis of asthma, lung cancer or respiratory failure can be scary and challenging. Receiving care from a medical team that doesn’t speak your preferred language can make the experience more difficult. The Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute Hispanic Program was recently launched to offer personalized care for lung and thoracic patients in their native language, making life-saving care more accessible for the Hispanic community and people who prefer to speak Spanish by removing cultural and linguistic barriers.

“Chicago and its surrounding areas are composed of a diverse population that continues to grow, but there isn’t a structured clinical program providing cutting-edge care for patients with lung or thoracic diseases in Spanish. People from different cultures may have specific needs for communicating with their physicians, and we’re honored to bring that personalized care to patients in their native language,” said Diego Mauricio Avella Patino, MD, a thoracic surgeon who grew up in Colombia and now leads the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute (CTI) Hispanic Program. “Speaking the same language provides a human touch, and we believe the CTI Hispanic Program will encourage patients to seek health care sooner, complete their recommended treatments, and experience better outcomes.”

In January, 45-year-old Nanci Alao of Chicago, Ill., was diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer and underwent surgery with Dr. Avella to have the cancer removed. The surgery was successful, and Alao went home the next day cancer-free. She’s now back at work and no longer experiences pain and shortness of breath. Alao says, even though she understands English, Spanish is her primary language, and being able to communicate in Spanish with her medical team made the process seamless.   

“My care was excellent primarily because it was in Spanish,” said Alao. “Even though there are wonderful interpreters available at Northwestern Medicine, it’s different from being able to speak with a doctor in your same language. Dr. Avella explained the type of cancer I had and why follow up appointments are needed. If anything concerning appears down the road, I trust we’ll be able to detect it early. Having everything in Spanish was the best, and I felt like I was at home.”

Every team member with the CTI Hispanic Program speaks Spanish, and they have a dedicated phone line for patients who prefer to communicate in Spanish. The team includes a thoracic surgeon, pulmonologist, patient procedure schedulers, front desk staff, social workers, clinic nurses and operating room nurses.

“As the son of Mexican immigrants growing up on the southside of Chicago, I can personally relate to having the hardship of communicating with your doctor to truly comprehend issues with your health,” said Daniel Meza, MD, pulmonologist with the CTI Hispanic Program. “Our goal is to make patients feel comfortable talking with their medical team about everything from diagnosis to treatment, what they can expect shortly after surgery, and in the long-term. We want to provide this personalized care for as many patients as possible in the Chicagoland area.”

Thoracic services at the CTI Hispanic Program include surgical treatment for lung cancer, esophageal cancer, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), lung transplantation and more. Pulmonary services include treatment for asthma, emphysema, long-term pulmonary disease, other respiratory illnesses and more. To view the full list of services and treatments, click here.

For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 847.738.4863.      

CHICAGO -  With a demanding and stressful job, Alex McKeown made exercise a priority for his health. The 33-year-old works in investing, where he negotiates and closes deals for large retail companies. On average, McKeown was working 65 to 70 hours per week, until a routine trip to the gym changed everything.  

On May 9, McKeown was participating in a workout class at a downtown Chicago fitness center when he started feeling lightheaded, hot and sweaty. He sat down on the floor, and the fitness instructor offered McKeown water and orange juice. By the time paramedics arrived and determined he should go to the hospital, McKeown was losing control of his left arm and left leg and couldn’t stand up on his own.

“I originally told myself to just push through it, but I had two women around me – the fitness instructor and another employee – and I’m so thankful they were there and kept a watchful eye on me, because they called 911,” said McKeown. “Without them, I likely would have gone home to sleep it off, and I probably wouldn’t be talking or walking right now.”

McKeown was rushed via ambulance to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where a CT scan confirmed he was having a stroke. Even while he was in the emergency department, McKeown tried taking a work call about an impending deal he was negotiating.

“I told the medical team, ‘One second – I need to take this call.’ When they realized it wasn’t important, they told me, ‘You’re having a stroke, you need to get off the phone.’”

McKeown was taken into emergency surgery where Ali Shaibani, MD, chief of neurointerventional radiology at Northwestern Medicine, performed a minimally invasive procedure called a thrombectomy to remove a blood clot blocking blood flow into the right side of McKeown’s brain and quickly restore circulation. McKeown’s brain function returned to normal immediately after the procedure. Six days after his stroke, McKeown was discharged from Northwestern Memorial with a new lease on life, and new learnings about his health.

“Alex’s case is remarkable because we typically don’t see strokes in his age group,” said Dr. Shaibani. “You lose about 1.9 million brain cells per minute with a stroke, so we moved very quickly to clear out a large blood clot that was blocking his artery. Additionally, Alex was found to have some cardiac issues and a dilated aorta. So, this plugged him into care that he may not have otherwise received for these other conditions.”

“During his stroke workup, Alex was found to have an aortic root aneurysm and a bicuspid aortic valve (BAV), which affects about 1% of the population. We have already scheduled him for surgery to address this life-threatening condition,” said Chris Mehta, MD, cardiac surgeon at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute.  

BAV, the most common congenital heart disorder, is twice as likely to occur in men than women. While the cause of BAV is unclear, experts believe that it develops in the earliest stages of pregnancy and can be hereditary. Like McKeown, many patients with BAV have an enlargement of the aorta, the major blood vessel that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. If left untreated, the aneurysm can enlarge to the point of rupture. 

McKeown had open heart surgery this summer with S. Christopher Malaisrie, MD, director of the comprehensive center for aortic disease at the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, a national destination for BAV treatment, and the source of the stroke was determined.

“Alex's aortic valve was congenitally abnormal and he had a very rare malformation called unicuspid aortic valve. The valve had a mass that was likely the cause of his stroke. The valve was not repairable as originally planned, so I did a Ross procedure for him, where we give patients a new heart valve using parts of their own body," said Dr. Malaisrie.

McKeown is now being treated by a comprehensive care team at Northwestern Medicine. He started drinking more water, eating more vegetables and established a healthier work-life balance by slowing down and taking more breaks. He even returned to the gym and is regaining his strength and momentum. 

“People think, this won’t happen to me, but guess what? I thought that too,” said McKeown. “The biggest lesson I learned from this experience is that if you think something is wrong, seek medical attention right away. Trust me, it’s worth it. If it wasn’t for the fitness staff at Studio Three – River North, and my incredible care team at Northwestern Medicine, I wouldn’t be here today.”

“It’s important to get your annual checkups. If your doctor hears a heart murmur, that should be followed up with an echocardiogram. If someone else in the family has bicuspid aortic valve, that’s also an indication to get further cardiac workup,” said Dr. Malaisrie.

“The important message here is that it’s almost never normal to not be able to move your arm, move your leg, or have a facial droop or vision problems. You should never ignore it,” said Dr. Shaibani. “Alex likely wouldn’t have made what is essentially a normal, neurologic recovery if he hadn’t made it to the hospital and been treated so quickly.”

For more information about Northwestern Medicine’s neurology and cardiovascular programs, visit nm.org.

Fernandez tumbled down a flight of stairs in October 2022 when he leapt forward to catch his rambunctious new puppy. He landed headfirst, causing a traumatic spine injury and temporary paralysis of his arms and legs. He underwent emergency spinal decompression surgery to prevent further damage from the swelling. 

“I was conscious, but my first thought was where are my arms and legs,” said Fernandez, who lives in Lombard.

Within a week Fernandez was transferred to Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital, where therapists incorporated dance moves into his recovery plan by using the ZeroG Gait and Balance Training System. The robotic body-weight support system is on an overhead track that helped Fernandez practice dance moves without the risk of falling. 

“When Mauricio came to Marianjoy he had extreme weakness in his arms and legs. He couldn’t move his fingers and had little movement in his right ankle and foot,” said Anita Kou, MD, medical director of the Spinal Cord Injury Program at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital. “Mauricio was already motivated, and by including something he loves into his therapy, we’ve seen amazing progress and expect him to continue getting stronger over the next several months.”

The rapid up-and-down motion of tap dancing, which Fernandez started doing in a wheelchair, strengthened his leg and foot muscles. Once his balance improved, Fernandez moved to the parallel bars for ballet poses to strengthen his core and arms. When he was ready for more dynamic moves, the 50-foot track of the ZeroG gave him plenty of room for jumps and leaps.

“Dance is so familiar to Mauricio that by tapping into that muscle memory, it really helped his recovery,” said Julie Zell, PT, physical therapist at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital. “It made therapy fun. Mauricio even taught the staff a dance routine that we all did together.”

Fernandez was discharged from inpatient therapy in late November 2022 and will continue outpatient therapy to work on returning to full form. Just two months after his accident, Fernandez went back to work teaching dance at a local studio in Countryside, Illinois.

“Dancing is my whole life. And while I may never get back to doing ballet lifts, the only solution is to keep putting my best foot forward every day,” said Fernandez. “I hope I can inspire my students to overcome barriers.”

To learn more about Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org.

In February 2020, Shelly Battista of Arlington Heights, Ill., was breastfeeding her newborn daughter, Emilia, when she felt a lump. She thought it was a clogged milk duct, but when it didn’t get better, Shelly went to the doctor and received a shocking diagnosis.

At 34-years-old, with no family history of breast cancer, Shelly was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer and the BRCA1 mutation, which is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer and other types of cancer. Knowing she wanted to have more children, Shelly immediately scheduled an appointment with Kara Goldman, MD, medical director of Fertility Preservation at Northwestern Medicine Center for Fertility and Reproductive Medicine. Shelly’s care team was able to freeze eight embryos (fertilized eggs) before she started cancer treatment.

Shelly went through chemotherapy, followed by a double mastectomy. On Dec. 9, 2020, Shelly’s pathology results came back clear – she was cancer-free. Unfortunately, the chemotherapy treatments resulted in ovarian insufficiency, a condition where the ovaries stop working before age 40. Shelly’s BRCA1 mutation increased her chance of ovarian cancer, so after careful counseling Shelly opted to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes surgically removed.   

In December 2021, one year after finishing treatment, Shelly was cleared for pregnancy from a cancer standpoint, and Dr. Goldman prepared Shelly’s uterus for transfer.

“Even without ovaries, we’re able to provide the supplemental hormones necessary for pregnancy. This alone is an important teaching point because many people are surprised to learn that you can use in vitro fertilization to become pregnant even if ovaries have been surgically removed or are no longer functioning,” said Dr. Goldman. “This requires the use of a patient’s previously frozen eggs or embryos, or eggs from an egg donor, so it’s critical that patients at risk of losing their ovaries or losing ovarian function have the opportunity to preserve their fertility.”

When it came time for embryo transfers, the first one didn’t work and neither did the second. 

In April 2022, with only six embryos remaining, and Shelly still hoping for two more children, Dr. Goldman transferred another embryo with cautious optimism, knowing that without her ovaries, Shelly had no more eggs to be fertilized.

Dr. Goldman’s positivity paid off. Shelly’s pregnancy test was positive, and at her first ultrasound appointment, Shelly learned she was having identical twin girls.  

Exactly two years to the day after she was declared cancer-free, Shelly was induced and delivered her identical twin girls, Nina and Margot, at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital on Dec. 9, 2022.

“Despite a breast cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy, and losing both ovaries, Shelly’s dream of having three children came true,” said Dr. Goldman. “One perfect embryo, frozen urgently before chemotherapy, became two beautiful baby girls. They are the reason why I care so deeply about my patients and my job. Caring for patients during the most vulnerable times of their lives, and helping them build the families they dreamed of, is an incredible privilege.”  

“I’m blessed to have a medical team who let me advocate for my medical needs and the future of my family,” said Shelly. “It’s a true miracle. We have two babies, exactly two-years cancer-free. My heart is very full.”

CHICAGO -  When Erika Aleman began training for marathons in 2015, she struggled to embrace her running coach’s mantra: “Take it one mile at a time.”

New to running, all she could think about was crossing the finish line.

“I was frustrated, but my coach was right. When I focused on the finish, I was overwhelmed,” says Erika, now 43-years-old, who saw her times improve and her love of running grow as she changed her approach.

Now, seven years later, Erika is again turning to that philosophy, but this time for a different type of challenge – to guide her through treatment for breast cancer.

On Sunday, October 9, Erika completed the Chicago Marathon, a race she trained for through 16 rounds of neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy. On Friday, October 14, just five days after the marathon, she underwent a bilateral mastectomy for stage II triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). 

“When I was diagnosed, I felt like I lost control of my life,” says Erika of her diagnosis. “I didn’t understand how this could happen. Everything went dark for me.”

Scared for her life and what the diagnosis meant for her two daughters, Erika also worried she would have to stop running, something that had become her personal form of therapy.

“Running is my ‘me time’ and the place where I can be in my own head,” she says. “Any trouble in my life, I’d grab my shoes and head outside. I couldn’t lose that, not now.”

Erika sought treatment at the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine where she met oncologist Regina Stein, MD, who supported her in continuing to run and remaining active.

“In our first appointment, Dr. Stein told me, ‘You will see the light at the end of the tunnel,’ and then she said it was okay to run,” said Erika. “That’s when I promised myself that I would survive this. Dr. Stein gave me hope when I needed it.”

Recalling their first meeting, Dr. Stein remembers her patient’s initial fear, but then that fear turned into a resolve to beat cancer. “I outlined what treatment she would need to achieve the goal of curing her cancer. Erika very confidently said a phrase in Spanish that I know very well. She said ‘así será,’ which means ‘that is what it will be.’ It’s a promise,” says Dr. Stein. “When she said that, I knew not just what we were trying to achieve, but that it would happen.” 

As her treatment progressed, Erika never stopped running or training. When it came time to schedule surgery, Erika had a surprising request – could she have her procedure after she ran the Chicago Marathon? Erika’s care team came up with a treatment plan that had the best odds of eradicating the cancer but was timed so she could still train and run the marathon without disrupting the necessary timeline. 

Erika says she relied on her faith, her family and her running to carry her through chemo and immunotherapy. And she never forgot her coach’s earlier words: Trust the process, take it one step at a time.

“I had to focus on what I could control and that was my running,” says Erika. “On the days I couldn’t run, then I would walk. Sometimes, I would only be able to walk around my living room, but I did it. I never stopped.”

Throughout treatment, Erika has relied on the support of her two daughters, Abby (16) and Marcia (21), who she calls her biggest cheerleaders and the reason she originally began running.

“I started running to prove to my daughters that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to,” says Erika, who is a single mom. “I told myself I would survive this for them. I am strong for my daughters, so they don’t have to worry about this.”  

At the marathon, Dr. Stein was excited to be along the course, cheering on the patient she calls an inspiration. 

“We can often think we’re running away from something, but Erika was running toward something,” says Dr. Stein. “She was running towards her cure, towards her life, towards her family. She was running towards the end of this, and she has run faster and stronger with each cycle.”

Reflecting on what was her 13^th marathon, Erika says yesterday’s race was her slowest, but also her most important.

“Life will punch you in the gut, but it doesn’t mean you should stop breathing,” says Erika. “You don’t get to pick and choose what happens to you, but you get to choose how to respond. I chose life, I chose to fight, I chose to embrace my reality and to keep going forward with my head held high. Yesterday, I ran THE BEST MARATHON OF my life.”

Six days following her surgery, Erika got the phone call she been waiting for since her cancer diagnosis: “Dr. Stein called me and told me I’m cancer-free. What’s better than that? We need to celebrate life. I’m a lucky one.”