Statistics show that 90% of the lungs that are donated to hospitals are unfit to be used for transplant operations because they are already damaged. The damaged lungs will be of no use even if they are transplanted in the patient. Generally lungs get damaged because of brain death during accidents or while they are being ventilated in an intensive care unit. This renders them completely useless for transplants.  

Up until recently the only way in which donated lungs could be stored was by keeping them on ice. The frozen state however suppressed their cell metabolism which made them irreparable. 

The renowned surgeons of the Toronto General Hospital have however discovered a new way to repair damaged lungs. The newly unearthed technique is being called as perfusion. It is this very hospital where a host of experimental lung transplants were conducted in the 1980s.

According to the new technique donated lungs are no longer stored on ice. Rather they are kept in a functioning state at body temperature using a ventilator and a bloodless solution. They have to be kept in this stage for up to eighteen hours. It is in this state that the damaged lungs can be subjected to perfusion. This is the name of the process of pumping a solution of oxygen and proteins along with other essential nutrients into the lungs.

This technique has allowed doctors to repair 55 percent of the damaged lungs that they have received. The technique has now given hope to the thousands of patients who die waiting for a healthy lung to be transplanted in them.