Health
Surgeons keep man alive without lungs, paving new path to transplant
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Surgeons at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago were able to keep a critically ill patient alive for 48 hours after removing both of his lungs, the hospital reported last week.
The patient, a 33-year-old Missouri resident whose name was not shared, was originally flown to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with lung failure linked to a flu infection in spring 2023.
When his condition escalated to severe pneumonia and sepsis, his heart stopped and the team performed CPR, according to a press release on the case.
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“He had developed an infection of his lungs that just could not be treated with any antibiotics because it was resistant to everything,” said Ankit Bharat, M.D., chief of thoracic surgery and executive director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute. “That infection caused his lungs to liquify and then continued to progress to the rest of his body.”
The lungs needed to be removed to stop the spread of infection, but there was a dangerous risk of immediate heart failure.
“He had developed an infection of his lungs that just could not be treated with any antibiotics because it was resistant to everything,” said Ankit Bharat, M.D., chief of thoracic surgery and executive director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute (pictured). (Northwestern Medicine)
“The lungs act as a ‘shock absorber’ for the right side of the heart; when you remove them, the heart pumps against high resistance and can fail instantly,” Bharat told Fox News Digital.
“Another critical danger is that without blood flowing from the lungs to the left heart, the left heart chambers can collapse or form deadly clots.”
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While the man remained on life support, the medical team designed a “total artificial lung system” (TAL) that took over gas exchange (oxygenation and CO₂ removal) and maintained blood flow to the heart in hopes that it could keep the patient alive after both of his diseased lungs were removed.
“A key innovation here is that we maintained the heart’s natural physiology. By using a ‘flow-adaptive’ design, we allowed the patient’s own heart to regulate blood flow, rather than forcing it with a machine,” Bharat said.
“Just one day after we took out the lungs, his body started to get better because the infection was gone.”
“Just one day after we took out the lungs, his body started to get better because the infection was gone.”
After 48 hours, the patient was stable enough to proceed with a double-lung transplant. Two years later, he is back to his regular routine.
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“The patient is doing remarkably well,” Dr. Bharat said. “He has excellent lung function, his heart function is preserved and he is completely functionally independent.”
This was the first successful application of this specific type of system, according to the medical team.
The medical team designed a “total artificial lung system” that maintained blood flow to the heart until the transplant could be placed. (Northwestern Medicine)
“While the concept of removing lungs and bridging to transplant has been attempted in rare cases historically, those prior attempts faced significant limitations regarding blood flow management and the risk of clots,” Bharat told Fox News Digital.
“Our system is novel because it includes a self-regulating ‘shunt’ that mimics the natural physics of the lung to protect the heart, and it uses dual return tubes to maintain normal blood flow through the left heart chambers.”
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In a case study, which was published last week in the Cell Press journal Med, experts revealed a “molecular analysis” of the removed lungs, showing extensive scarring and damage. This supports the idea that in some severe cases of acute respiratory distress syndrome, transplantation may be the only viable option.
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Researchers hope that the TAL system could eventually be a viable strategy for patients who are waiting for donor lungs — specifically, those with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) along with necrotizing pneumonia or septic shock.
The patient’s new transplant is shown at left, and his old lungs are shown at right. “This technology allows us to ‘clean the slate’ by removing the infection, stabilizing the patient and bridging them to a successful transplant,” the lead surgeon said. (Northwestern Medicine)
“These patients have a mortality rate exceeding 80% and are often turned down for transplant because they are too infected,” Dr. Bharat said. “This technology allows us to ‘clean the slate’ by removing the infection, stabilizing the patient and bridging them to a successful transplant.”
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In the future, he added, they hope to develop durable, implantable artificial lungs that patients can live with long-term, not just as a bridge to transplant.
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Eliminating sugar from your diet may seem like the key to healthy eating, but research suggests it could have unintended effects on digestive health.
A study presented at ENDO 2026, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, suggests that a total lack of sucrose, or table sugar, may harm gut health and disrupt the body’s natural metabolism.
To explore how the total absence of dietary sugar impacts the body, researchers at the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait City conducted a 16-week study on two groups of mice. Both groups were placed on a low-fat diet, but with one critical difference.
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One group consumed a low-fat diet that included a standard amount of sucrose, while the other group ate a low-fat diet that was completely sugar-free, according to the study’s press release.
Throughout the trial, the scientists monitored a wide variety of physiological factors, including the animals’ weight, glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, hormone levels, internal inflammation and the specific composition of their gut bacteria.
A total lack of dietary sugar can cause imbalances in the gut bacteria and lead to signs of fatty liver disease, even without any weight gain, researchers said. (iStock)
The study outcome suggested that completely removing sugar caused several unexpected health problems.
“Completely removing sucrose from a low-fat diet may unexpectedly disrupt gut health and promote inflammation and metabolic dysfunction,” Rasheed Ahmad, principal scientist and head of the Immunology & Microbiology Department at the Dasman Diabetes Institute, said in the release.
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Even though the mice on the sugar-free diet did not gain any extra weight compared to the control group, their internal health indicators deteriorated.
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The animals that lacked sucrose developed an imbalance in their gut microbes and increased inflammation within the intestines and liver.
They also showed signs of poor glucose regulation, insulin resistance and cellular changes associated with fatty liver disease, according to the research.
Future dietary guidelines may shift away from strict, absolute sugar bans and instead focus on overall gut health through balanced nutrition. (iStock)
“The findings suggest that complete removal of sucrose from a low-fat diet may negatively affect gut microbiota and metabolic health,” Ahmad concluded.
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While the risks of high-sugar diets are well-established, the researchers noted that little attention has been given to the effects of completely eliminating sugar from low-fat meals.
Scientists say these new findings highlight that dietary carbohydrates play a valuable role in supporting balance between the immune system and the gut microbiome.
Completely cutting sucrose from a low-fat diet can unexpectedly trigger gut inflammation and disrupt the metabolism, experts say. (iStock)
Because this research was conducted on mice over a relatively short 16-week period, further clinical trials are necessary to determine whether a completely sugar-free diet causes the same gut and liver inflammation in humans.
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Additionally, the study focused specifically on removing sucrose from low-fat meals, meaning the results might not apply to people eliminating sugar while following higher-fat or ketogenic eating plans, the researchers noted.
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The team believes that future dietary guidelines may shift away from strict, absolute sugar restrictions and instead place a greater emphasis on maintaining a diverse, healthy population of gut bacteria through balanced nutrition.
“In the long term, these findings could help improve strategies for preventing and managing metabolic disorders, fatty liver disease and chronic inflammatory conditions,” Ahmad said.
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A cure for cancer could be on the horizon in the next decade, according to experts.
During the WSJ Leadership Institute CEO Summit in London last week, Johnson & Johnson Chairman and CEO Joaquin Duato reflected on the pharmaceutical company’s projections on the future of cancer treatment.
In the next 10 years, the goal is to “try to eliminate cancer,” Duato shared.
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“That’s a high goal, and we are already making significant progress in certain cancers,” he said.
Duato used multiple myeloma as an example, noting that the life expectancy is currently 10 years, when it was previously “only single years.”
Joaquin Duato, chairman and CEO of Johnson and Johnson, speaks at the Punchbowl News Conference at Union Station on March 10, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
“We have treatments now that utilize your own immune system to attack the cancer,” he said at the summit. “For patients who were already going into hospice, so they didn’t have any other alternative, they are [at] more than five years, with a single administration, in remission. That [is] spectacular.”
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“When patients see that, they cannot believe that because they have been coming to the hospital every week [for] a decade, having multiple therapies.”
The goal is to “try to eliminate cancer” in the next 10 years, the pharmaceutical executive said. (iStock)
According to Duato, Johnson & Johnson is working to understand the biology of cancer growth and to formulate new technologies to address it.
“It’s realistic to believe that we are going to cure certain cancers, and some others we’re going to turn into chronic diseases,” he predicted.
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“Cancer is an important thing – I cannot think about anybody who has not been touched by cancer,” he went on. “But there are many other opportunities for us to actually advance science, to address very important social problems.”
Duato called out dementia as another “important problem” in need of a solution.
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He predicted that life expectancy, which has risen steadily over the past century, will continue to increase as longevity technologies and solutions advance, improving quality of life along the way.
Duato commented that J&J has been optimistic about the role artificial intelligence will play in the future of healthcare, calling it a “force multiplier.”
Biomarkers and AI can help with the earlier diagnosis of cancer, as well as a more advanced and personalized approach to surgery, a doctor noted. (iStock)
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel agreed with Duato’s outlook on the future of cancer care, noting that certain cancers will turn into chronic diseases while others will find outright cures.
“Advances [will be] based on the use of AI to help guide targeted treatments with expanding knowledge of cancer mutations and how to target them,” he predicted, speaking to Fox News Digital.
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Siegel added that biomarkers and AI can help with earlier diagnoses, as well as a more advanced and personalized approach to surgery.
J&J recently acquired Firefly Bio, a biotech firm that produces drugs that enter cancer cells to “target certain proteins that contain difficult to treat gene mutations,” the doctor added.
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