AC360 411: Judge gives girl better chance at lung transplant

Editor’s Note: Tonight on AC360° Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Jason Carroll will have new details on the efforts to get new lungs for 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan.

10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan is battling cystic fibrosis and desperately needs a lung transplant.  Without one doctors say she will die, possibly within weeks.

Sarah has been waiting more than 18 months for donor lungs from another child. Her parents say modified lungs from an adult donor would give her a fighting chance. This week they filed a lawsuit to get Sarah on the waiting list for adult lungs.  A federal judge ruled in their favor and will allow Sarah to be on the adult waiting list for 10 days.  Here’s the AC360 411 on organ transplants and cystic fibrosis:

• More than 118,000 people are waiting for an organ.
• 18 people will die each day waiting for an organ.
• 1 organ donor can save up to 8 lives.
•  Another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 10 minutes.
•  Approximately 79 people get an organ transplant every day.
• On average, 18 people die each day waiting for a transplant.
• More than 1,600 people on the national transplant waiting list need lungs.
• About 30,000 children and adults in the U.S. have cystic fibrosis, an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system.
• About 1,000 new cases of cystic fibrosis are diagnosed each year.
• More than 70% of cystic fibrosis patients are diagnosed by age two.
• More than 45% of CF patients are age 18 or older.
• The predicted median age for survival for CF patients is the late 30s.
• About 150 to 200 people with CF received lung transplants last year.
• More than 80% of CF patients are alive one year after a lung transplant, and more than 50% are alive after five years.