Cigarettes have been repackaged for the 21st century. The new millennial pass-time is vaping, an electronic device that heats a liquefied solution of nicotine or THC that becomes vaporized as it is inhaled. Because they are new, there hasn’t been the same extensive research that over time told us the real toll of cigarettes and the plethora of health issues involved. Vaping is relatively unstudied and has not had enough time to show long term effects. Its premise of safety lies in health experts lack of proving otherwise. However, a mysterious vaping illness has spread in the United States, mostly around high school aged teens. It has caused a disease known as vaping associated lung injury, VALI, that has symptoms that look like pneumonia such as inflammation, nausea, and vomiting.
The Teenager’s Lung Transplant
As originally reported in USA Today, in Detroit, doctors have performed the first double lung transplant due to a vaping injury; the patient was a 17-year-old student. His situation was urgent, moving him to the top of the transplant list. Usually, the only cases at this level are for severe lung damage. He was a high school athlete that was completely healthy to this point. Today, he is making progress to recovery.
The doctors described shock at the situation themselves. Dr. Hassan Nemeh, the surgical director of thoracic organ transplant at the hospital, had this to say:
“What I saw in his lungs is something I never saw before, and I have been doing lung transplants for 20 years.”
The student’s condition progressed quickly. He was admitted into the hospital on the 5th of September and a week later he was on intubation. By the 17th, he was on life support. As he continued to decline in the first few days of October, he was transferred to a more equipped hospital, Henry Ford, and by the 8th, his case was put on the waiting list saved for the most serious cases.
Lung Transplants
Usually the only cases that get the transplants are very advanced, end-stage lung diseases. There was 2,530 transplants in 2018 and there was another 1,422 waiting. About 85% of transplant recipients survive the first year, and half survive the next five. Transplant recipients require a cacophony of medications that prevent the body from rejecting the organs for the rest of their lives.
The patient had lived a normal teenage life: he went to school, was an athlete, passed time with friends, enjoyed sailing, and playing video games, according to the family’s statement. He has now been given a new set of lungs, and has been intubated. While in the hospital, he turned 17. Now he begins his process of recovery. As vaping becomes more commonplace, we should not forget these cases that tell us the health consequences of vaping are not yet clear, and there are more cases like this one.
