Chicago surgeons have successfully performed an “extremely rare” double lung transplant on a 54-year-old man suffering from terminal cancer.

Albert Khoury has a new lease on life after undergoing the incredibly intricate, seven-hour procedure at Northwestern Medicine last September.

Now, six months on, he is cancer-free and back to leading a normal life — giving hope to others who have discovered they have advanced lung cancer.

“You didn’t see this smile on my face for over a year, but now I can’t stop smiling,” Khoury declared in a statement issued by Northwestern.

Khoury was first diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer back in early 2020, despite the fact he was not a smoker.

“Due to the COVID-19 surge, I couldn’t begin treatment right away,” he explained. “By July 2020, my cancer grew to stage 2 and, after several chemotherapy treatments, it kept growing to stage 3 and 4. Doctors at other health systems told me there was no chance for survival.”

However, Khoury’s sister spotted a news story about lung transplants being pioneered for COVID-19 patients at Northwestern Medicine and encouraged her brother to make an appointment at the hospital.

With Khoury’s cancer spreading rapidly, he soon ended up in an intensive care unit on a ventilator with pneumonia and sepsis. Doctors at Northwestern Medicine knew there was no other option but to try and perform the risky and rare double transplant.

“Fortunately, Khoury’s tumor was only localized to the chest, completely encasing both his lungs, but hadn’t spread to other parts of his body, which is a rare characteristic for stage 4 lung cancer,” oncologist Dr. Young Chae stated, explaining why surgeons believed they could pull off the procedure, potentially making Khoury cancer-free.

“For patients with stage 4 cancer, lung transplantation is considered a complete ‘no-no,’ but because Khoury’s cancer was confined only to his chest, we were confident we could clear all the cancer during surgery and save his life,” Dr. Ankit Bharat, one of the surgeons involved in the seven-hour procedure, added.

The operation was performed late last September, with Barat and his team “extremely meticulous to not let trillions of cancer cells from the old lungs spill out into Khoury’s chest cavity or into his bloodstream.”

The surgery was a stunning success, effectively giving Khoury his life back.

Half a year on, the cancer survivor is off oxygen and is even back in the gym, exercising his two new lungs.

“My life went from zero to 100 because of Northwestern Medicine,” he declared. “My medical team never gave up on me.”