{"id":69284,"date":"2023-03-28T14:21:24","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T20:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=69284"},"modified":"2025-12-31T09:06:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T16:06:26","slug":"bronchiolitis-obliterans-leads-to-lung-transplant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/bronchiolitis-obliterans-leads-to-lung-transplant\/","title":{"rendered":"Lung transplant brings first deep breaths since he was a baby"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><figure id=\"attachment_69286\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69286\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-69286\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/03\/28135926\/AustinYang-portraiteee.webp\" alt=\"Austin Yang, who suffered from a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans as a child and caused him to need a lung transplant.\" width=\"640\" height=\"444\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69286\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Austin Yang received a lung transplant last December. As a child, he suffered from a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans which damaged his lungs. Photos by Cyrus McCrimmon for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Successful surgery gives most lung transplant patients a chance to really breathe again.<\/p>\n<p>It gave Austin Yang his first taste of really breathing. At least as far as he could remember.<\/p>\n<p>Yang fell ill with pneumonia from an adenovirus when he was a baby. It <a id=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/thorax.bmj.com\/content\/61\/6\/503\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">led to<\/a> a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. You don\u2019t need to know Latin to get the gist: It damaged his lungs and hindered their development.<\/p>\n<p>The son of Hmong refugees from Laos, Yang, now 26, spent most of his life on supplemental oxygen delivered through a tracheostomy tube. An oxygen tank accompanied him through high school in Northglenn and college at the University of Colorado Denver. A ventilator met his oxygen needs as he slept.<\/p>\n<p>Not long after he graduated with an information systems degree in May 2022, Yang\u2019s health deteriorated. By that September, his lungs were failing. He was admitted to <a id=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.childrenscolorado.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado<\/a> where he had been treated for years and was soon on a mechanical ventilator 24\/7.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-youtube su-u-responsive-media-yes\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZkA7jopx5H0?mute=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture\" title=\"Life is Great | Austin Yang | Harry Mack x UCHealth | Ep. 012\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h2><strong>Bronchiolitis obliterans leads to necessary lung transplant<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In October, as a wave of RSV cases swamped that hospital, he was transferred across the Anschutz Medical Campus to UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/locations\/uchealth-university-of-colorado-hospital-uch\/\">UCH<\/a>). He needed a lung transplant, and UCH is where those happen in Colorado. (The hospital\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/services\/transplant-services\/\">transplant services team<\/a> has performed <a id=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/optn.transplant.hrsa.gov\/data\/view-data-reports\/center-data\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">every lung transplant in the state<\/a> since 1998, including 40 in 2022.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/provider\/alice-gray-md\/\">Dr. Alice Gray<\/a>, a University of Colorado School of Medicine critical care medicine specialist and medical director of Lung Transplantation at UCH, quickly recognized that Yang\u2019s lungs were too far gone for even a ventilator. She put him on an <a id=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/services\/heart-and-vascular-care\/services-and-treatments\/ecmo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ECMO<\/a>, machine that takes blood from the body, adds oxygen, removes carbon dioxide, and pumps it back in.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_69287\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69287\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-69287\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/03\/28140948\/AustinYang-treadmill-fronteee.webp\" alt=\"Yang, who as a child suffered from a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans that damaged his lungs, does his rehab after a lung transplant.\" width=\"400\" height=\"269\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69287\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getting stronger by the day, Yang looks forward to a job hunt to apply his degree in information systems, traveling and serving as a sounding board for other young lung transplant patients.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cECMO is very sci-fi,\u201d Yang said later. \u201cBut after a while, it was just like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s just another oxygen tank, you know \u2013 something I\u2019m used to.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gray also put Yang on the waiting list for a lung transplant. Given Yang\u2019s youth and other factors, his wait might normally have been about a week. But Yang stood four-foot-eleven and weighed around 90 pounds. That limited his options. His days in UCH\u2019s cardiothoracic ICU stretched to two weeks, then three, then four.<\/p>\n<p>At that point, Gray said, \u201chis blood pressure was low, and we were worried he was soon going to become too sick to survive a transplant.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Bronchiolitis obliterans \u2018destroyed\u2019 lungs<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Finally, after more than a month, a lung match came through. The morning of Dec. 9, 2022, Yang was rolled into a UCH operating room, where CU School of Medicine cardiothoracic surgeon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/provider\/john-d-mitchell-md-thoracic-and-cardiac-surgery\/\">Dr. John Mitchell<\/a> would perform a double lung transplant.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_69292\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69292\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-69292\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/03\/28141808\/dr.-John-Mitchell.webp\" alt=\"Dr. John Mitchell\" width=\"200\" height=\"284\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69292\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. John Mitchell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When he met Yang prior to surgery, Mitchell said, \u201cI was very impressed at how he seemed to be dealing with the incredibly difficult situation he was in \u2013 just a tremendous amount of fortitude through the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Early in the procedure, Mitchell saw that this would be one of the most challenging of the hundreds of lung transplants he had performed. Not only were Yang\u2019s lungs \u201cbasically destroyed,\u201d but also previous <a id=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.verywellhealth.com\/what-type-of-procedure-is-a-pleurodesis-2249164\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pleurodesis<\/a> procedures to stop the lungs from collapsing had brought scarring that essentially cemented Yang\u2019s lungs to his chest walls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, chiseling out everything safely for him was really difficult,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n<p>Twelve hours later, Mitchell and the surgical team had finished their work. Yang returned to the cardiothoracic ICU for a couple of days, underwent a routine follow-up procedure to remove blood clots, and was home two weeks later. The tracheostomy tube, the oxygen tank by day and the ventilator by night \u2013 all were now things of the past for him. In their place were antirejection drugs.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_69288\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69288\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-69288\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/03\/28141111\/AustinYang-band-work.webp\" alt=\"Yang, who as a child suffered from a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans that damaged his lungs, does his rehab after a lung transplant.\" width=\"640\" height=\"470\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69288\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yang works a band to build strength during a pulmonary rehab session.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He was doing pulmonary rehabilitation at UCH within two months of surgery \u2013 on the treadmill and other cardio machines as well as doing strength work, all of it unimaginable before.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have so much more energy,\u201d Yang said.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>From lung disease to a more &#8216;joyful thing&#8217;<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>He looks forward to job hunting, perhaps in cybersecurity, ideally in IT at Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been there so long that I want to repay their kindness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He also looks forward to traveling to places like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Canada. Before, even if he had the energy, he would have to lug along oxygen, a ventilator, and sterilized water for the ventilator\u2019s humidifier. Now can travel light, he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, it\u2019s just packing clothes, a few medications, that\u2019s it,\u201d Yang said.<\/p>\n<p>He concedes that the prospect of undergoing a transplant was \u201ca scary thing.\u201d But it was, at the same time \u201ca very joyful thing, bringing about a new life, if at the cost of an unfortunate passing of someone else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell may have performed the essential act of replacing Yang\u2019s failing lungs with healthy ones, but he stressed the importance of the team\u2019s broader efforts. Gray\u2019s care kept Yang strong enough to withstand the transplant. Critical care doctors and nurses sustained Yang for weeks in the ICU. Anesthesiologists managed him during the operation. Perfusionists kept an eye on Yang\u2019s ECMO.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_69289\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69289\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-69289\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/03\/28141219\/AustinYang-treadmilleee.webp\" alt=\"Yang, a young lung transplant patient, on the treadmill in UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital\u2019s pulmonary rehabilitation center two-and-a-half months after surgery. \" width=\"400\" height=\"278\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69289\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yang on the treadmill in UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital\u2019s pulmonary rehabilitation center two-and-a-half months after surgery. Before the transplant, he could scarcely walk without supplemental oxygen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a big group effort \u2013 that\u2019s so important,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n<p>There are no guarantees for lung transplant patients. There\u2019s a <a id=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/books\/NBK564391\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">45% rejection rate<\/a> in the five years post-transplant. But Mitchell is optimistic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you look at his X-rays, it\u2019s just unbelievable. I think overall, he\u2019s off to a really good start, especially given what dire straits he was in prior to the operation,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cIt\u2019s really gratifying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Successful surgery gives most lung transplant patients a chance to really breathe again. It gave Austin Yang his first taste of really breathing. At least as far as he could remember. Yang fell ill with pneumonia from an adenovirus when he was a baby. It led to a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. You don\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":69286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6839,4501,39],"class_list":["post-69284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovative-care","tag-ecmo","tag-lung-transplants","tag-transplant-services"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bronchiolitis obliterans \u2018destroyed\u2019 young lungs - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans damaged young Austin Yang&#039;s lungs and hindered development. 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