A lung transplant was performed on a man in the United States in May 2016 and his family was so excited that he had a second lung removed, they said.
The transplanted organ is now in a waiting room at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, according to a press release from the hospital.
The transplant was done by the same team that performed the original lung transplant, and is being treated as a second transplant, the hospital said in a press conference Tuesday.
The news comes just two weeks after a group of doctors in Israel performed a second, successful lung transplant.
They were also able to remove a large chunk of the lung tissue from a person with severe lung disease, according a press report.
The operation is being conducted under the supervision of Dr. Zvi Shavit, who heads the Division of Lung Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
Shavits team is the first in the world to successfully transplant the lung from a healthy person with the condition known as CLL.
The condition is caused by the abnormal development of a person’s cells in the lungs, according the American Lung Association.
The patient was born with a rare genetic disorder known as LLL, which causes the normal cells to turn on a deadly, self-destructive gene.
The donor was diagnosed with the disease and has undergone four lung transplants.
The new patient is expected to recover and go home soon, according Shavitz.
He hopes the second transplant will allow him to live to see his 65th birthday.
The medical center said that the transplant is expected on Wednesday and that the second patient will undergo an additional transplant.
It is unclear if the second donor will be able to walk.
The hospital is currently working on another two transplant patients.
According to the American Heart Association, about 6,000 people in the U.S. die from the condition every year.
Shachar Kornilovsky contributed to this report.
