Bloomington teacher cancer-free after first-ever double-lung transplant to treat cancer

(FOX 9) - A Bloomington educator who battled stage 4 colorectal cancer for nearly a decade and faced a grim prognosis is now in remission after a first-of-its-kind transplant.

Mandy Wilk, 42, of Savage, underwent a double-lung transplant at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago in June. The surgery, which had never been performed on a colorectal cancer patient, got rid of the disease.

Wilk was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2017 when she was 34. At the time, she was given two years to live. The cancer had already spread to her liver. Later, it spread to her lungs.

In 2020, she underwent her first transplant after her brother donated more than half of his liver. But six months later, the cancer returned. This time, it was in both lungs. After several rounds of chemotherapy and other treatments, most doctors said they couldn’t help her.

"The news started getting worse and worse until January, when my oncologist is like, 'Well, chemo doesn't work anymore, so we are out of options,’" remembered Wilk. "Every Christmas and every holiday and all our get-togethers, it's like, 'Is this going to be the last one?'"

Then, her fortunes changed. In March, she connected with transplant surgeons at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, who agreed to perform a double-lung transplant.

In cancer patients, it’s an especially complicated procedure.

"We have to very carefully take out both the lungs that have sometimes millions and perhaps billions of cancer cells, and we have to do this in a manner that it doesn't escape into the bloodstream," said Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern Medicine. 

After her surgery, tests revealed no signs of cancer, he said.

"When something doesn't feel good, I shouldn't take that answer as the end-all be-all for answers," said Wilk of her experience seeking treatments, "and if I had done that a long time ago, I wouldn't be sitting here today."