The ‘twin’ 300th lung transplant recipients, Kenny Deison (left center) and Kevin King (right center), celebrate with Drs. Scott Johnson (left) and Luis Angel. Photo by Julie Wiley of University Health System.
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Contact: Will Sansom, (210) 567-2579

Story by Leni Kirkman of University Health System

SAN ANTONIO (June 17, 2008) — We all breathe in and exhale about 15 times every minute or 22,000 times a day. Most of us don’t take time to count. And, unless we’re huffing and puffing after walking up a flight of stairs or exerting ourselves some other way, we probably don’t even notice the respirations that are part of the process of delivering oxygen to where it is needed in the body and removing carbon dioxide waste.

Related story: University Transplant Center continues to improve lung transplantation

That was not the case for 53-year-old Kevin King and 59-year-old Kenny Deison.

Before undergoing lung transplantation in March through the University Transplant Center, a partnership of the UT Health Science Center San Antonio and University Health System, they were each keenly focused on every breath they struggled to take.

Transplants needed for various conditions
At his lowest point, King, who suffered from interstitial pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), remembers asking his wife to buy him an electric toothbrush because the exertion of brushing his teeth was just too much. He was diagnosed with IPF in the summer of 2005 but did not need to begin using a portable oxygen tank until two years later. “By December of last year I was on 100 percent oxygen,” said King, a real estate specialist for Valero Energy Corp. “It was like our lives were standing still. Every time the phone rang, our first thought was it them telling us to come in (for a transplant).”

Deison, a rancher who made his living playing the guitar, was forced to have portions of both lungs removed in 2005 due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or emphysema. In the fall of last year, doctors told him he might not make it through the winter. He recalls his “call” like it was yesterday. Despite his illness, he was cutting limbs to make a fence. “‘Are you ready for a transplant?’ they asked me. I think I answered, ‘I don’t know,’” Deison said with a smile, even though he and his daughter left almost immediately on their 91-mile drive from their ranch near Bastrop.

The diseases that resulted in the need for lung transplantation in these two men are almost opposite in their effects, said Scott Johnson, M.D., associate professor and head of general thoracic surgery in the Department of Surgery’s Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Health Science Center. “IPF restricts lung capacity as the lung tissue progressively scars and thickens, shrinking air volume,” he explained. “In COPD, small air sacs enlarge as they coalesce with surrounding sacs. This results in the lungs becoming hyperinflated with air that is difficult to expel.”

More than half of the lung transplants performed at the University Transplant Center are for IPF. Other leading reasons for transplants are COPD, cystic fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension.

The lungs for the two patients, King and Deison, reflected the team’s experience in caring for IPF and COPD. Deison received the right lung because the transplant team prefers that patients with COPD receive a transplanted right lung. King received the left lung because the team prefers patients with IPF receive a left-lung transplant.

The “twins”
The two operations were performed simultaneously on March 20. While they were actually the 300th and 301st lung transplants to be performed through the program since its inception in 1987, King and Deison asked to be recognized as a “matching set” and counted together as the 300th lung transplant. Both men are recovering well from this complex operation and, as they come in for their regular follow-up appointments, many of the transplant team members good-naturedly refer to them as “the twins.”

Center has some of longest-surviving lung transplant patients in the nation
Reaching the 300th milestone for lung transplantation makes the Health Science Center/University Health System program one of the largest in the nation. More importantly, the program’s survival statistics meet or exceed national averages and the program has transplanted some of the longest-surviving lung transplant patients in the nation.

There are currently 159 Texas candidates listed by the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) waiting for donated lungs. In 2007, 25 patients received lung transplants through the University Transplant Center.

Will Sansom contributed to this story.