Iowa woman gets rare quadruple organ transplant at Northwestern Memorial Hospital

Surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital earlier this year performed the nation's first known quadruple organ transplant on a patient with a prior lung transplant.

Doctors said 36-year-old Elizabeth Wehrle, of Iowa, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at age 11. She underwent a double lung transplant in 2017, but became critically ill earlier this year, and was diagnosed with a severe form of chronic rejection of her transplanted lungs caused by comp;lications from cystic fibrosis.

She traveled to Chicago in March to receive a second double-lung transplant, along with a liver and kidney.

"Retransplanting lungs is extraordinarily difficult because prior surgery can leave the chest densely scarred and the normal anatomy severely distorted," said Dr. Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and executive director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute. "Adding a liver and kidney transplant placed Elizabeth's case in a category few transplant programs ever encounter. Her outcome reflects not just surgical skill, but an entire system built to care for the most complex patients."

Following four months of recovery, Wehrle is now walking several miles a day. She personally thanked the doctors and her donors following this long journey.

"If there's one thing I hope people take away from my story, it's that organ donation truly saves lives. I'm living proof of that. Thank you for giving me the second chance, and I promise not to take it for granted," she said.

Doctors said Wehrle will finally return home to Iowa and be reunited with her son on Friday.