A British man has become the first to benefit from a pioneering lung transplant operation in an NHS breakthrough which could save up to 750 lives a year.
The extraordinary achievement saw Joe McConnell, 62 – who was dying and reliant on oxygen – receive donor lungs which might ordinarily have been rejected because of their condition.
But instead, they were transported between three different hospitals and kept alive and 'breathing' in a specially-designed box to allow doctors to monitor their function and boost the chances of his operation being a success.
The specialist hospital at the centre of the pilot study, Royal Papworth in Cambridge, said it was 'the furthest perfused lungs have ever travelled for transplantation outside North America, creating a new UK and European record'.
At the moment, many lungs offered up for donation are rejected before being removed because they fall into a clinical 'grey area' where specialists cannot be certain they will be suitable to be transplanted into seriously ill patients.
Those which are removed are packed in ice to be transported but, because they are so delicate, a significant proportion are rejected after being inspected by specialists. This regularly causes life-saving transplant ops to be cancelled at the last minute. Around 17 per cent of people on the lung transplant list die every year while waiting for an organ.
But the ground-breaking pilot programme means that lungs can be transported in the 'lung-in-a-box' machine and taken to Papworth where they can be pumped with oxygenated blood and nutrients and tested further over 12 hours to make sure they are functioning properly and suitable for transplant.
It means lungs which may have been turned down for being borderline, or difficult to assess, will end up being rejuvenated for use, raising hope for the hundreds of patients waiting on the transplant list.
Joseph McConnell with Ellie Johnson, Heart and Lung Transplant Coordinator at the hospital
Pictured: The transplant, surgical and theatres team involved in perfusing the lungs that went on to be transplanted in Birmingham
oyal Papworth Hospital is a heart and lung hospital, located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridgeshire
By the time father-of-two Joe, from Newport, South Wales, received his transplant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, the lungs had been given the green light and were in near-perfect condition – despite having travelled for hundreds of miles.
Joe, a carpenter, had been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a potentially fatal condition which causes scarring of the lungs, and would have died without the operation.
Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday ten weeks on from the surgery, he is now 'fighting fit'.
'I was dying,' Joe says today. 'I was grey, I was blue and I was down. Everyone who knew me could see it. I was walking around with an oxygen tank to stay alive.
'Everyone now tells me how well I look. In comparison with 10 weeks ago, I'm a different person.'
The technique used in the NHS pilot, known as ex vivo machine perfusion, has previously been used in UK hospitals and has helped organs such as hearts, kidneys, lungs and livers to be assessed before being transplanted.
Fifteen hospitals in England, including Papworth, are equipped with such perfusion machines, which mimic the environment of the human body and allow them to continue functioning.
If they perform well over several hours, they are removed to be transplanted. More than half of all lungs assessed in this way are transplanted – double the number placed on ice.
But the pilot goes one step further, and not only allows lungs to be kept 'alive' while being transported around the country, but introduces an extra assessment stage at Papworth.
This can potentially improve their condition, and means fewer will go to waste.
Last year, just 154 of 748 donors whose lungs were offered ultimately had them transplanted – about 21 per cent. Most organs are rejected before being removed from the donor.
In Joe's case, the organ was donated at a hospital in the North of England, and then taken to Papworth in one of the perfusion machines known as a 'lung-in-a-box'. The warm, high-tech chamber connects the lungs to a ventilator and pumps them with a nutrient-rich, blood-like solution which keeps them functioning outside the body.
The organ underwent its detailed assessment at Papworth before being sent to Queen Elizabeth in Birmingham for Joe's operation.
He had previously been called to the hospital seven times when potential donor lungs became available, but on each occasion the transplant could not proceed – until, in August the call came which changed his life.
Joe said: 'You don't know whether you're going to wake up or not. But I was surrounded by positive people and that made me feel positive. Everyone put me at ease and there was plenty of banter.'
He no longer needs to use an oxygen cylinder and is back to going on walks with wife Anita and their seven-year-old rescue greyhound, Molly.
Pictured: The first lung transplant to take place through the hospital's ARCs pilot
The Assessment and Recovery Centres programme was developed by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) in collaboration with cardiothoracic transplant teams and funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.
If successful, it could become the standard way of assessing donated organs that need further evaluation before they can be accepted for transplant.
NHSBT predicts it could enable up to 750 extra lifesaving and life-improving transplants every year.
Marius Berman, Consultant Cardiothoracic & Transplant Surgeon and Clinical Director for Transplantation at Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: 'The decision to accept donor lungs must frequently be made within a short timeframe and on the basis of sometimes incomplete information. Potentially transplantable lungs may therefore be declined because of uncertainty on how suitable they are.
'Ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) has provided an important way of addressing this limitation. By ventilating and perfusing donor lungs outside the body under controlled conditions, transplant teams can obtain additional information about the performance of the lungs, including gas exchange and lung function.
'However, availability of EVLP does not automatically translate into equitable national access.
'Specialist equipment, trained personnel, operating theatre capacity and the logistics of organ retrieval and transportation all influence whether this technology can be used.
'The development of Lung Assessment and Recovery Centres (ARCs), currently on a trial basis by NHS Blood and Transplant, represents an attempt to address these barriers through a coordinated national service.'
Mr Berman, who is also National Speciality Advisor on heart transplantation for NHS England, added: 'In 2024, Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Cambridge established a clinical EVLP transplantation programme supported by NHS England funding. The programme provided the infrastructure, technical capability and multidisciplinary expertise necessary for the subsequent ARCs pilot.
'We are delighted to have played a key role in the national ARCs programme, working with other lung transplant centres to improve both the number of lung transplants and equity of access to lung transplantation for everyone in the UK.'