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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 30, 1993                   TAG: 9301300083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Short

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WOMAN GETS PARTS OF PARENTS' LUNGS

Parts of the lungs from a mother and a father were transplanted into their dying 22-year-old daughter Friday in the world's first such operation, a hospital announced.

"Surgeons removed portions of the lungs of the patient's 49-year-old mother and 55-year-old father to transplant into the young woman in an urgent and high-risk emergency procedure to extend her life," said a statement from the University of Southern California's University Hospital.

James Sewell; his wife, Barbara; and their daughter Stacy - all from Quartz Hill, Calif. - were in critical condition after the five-hour set of simultaneous operations performed in three operating rooms. But "they're all doing fine," said Beverly Strong, a hospital spokeswoman.

The young woman was dying from cystic fibrosis, Strong said. "It became apparent she was going into [lung] failure and they had to perform the surgery to save her life."

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease that attacks the lungs and kills half its victims by age 30.

From 1987 through 1992, surgeons performed 433 double transplants of full lungs and 976 single-lung transplants. There also have been six transplants of one lung lobe, the hospital said. The left lung contains three lobes and the right lung has two.

Lisa Leonard, the hospital's cardiothoracic transplant program coordinator, said Friday's operation was the world's first transplant of two lobes into a single recipient.

About 30,000 Americans are afflicted by cystic fibrosis, caused by a genetic defect that makes the body secrete a mucous that clogs the lungs.

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