MEXICO: First Bilateral Lung Transplant In Jalisco Gives 23-Year-Old New Life, Spurs Donation Drive

First Jalisco Resident Survives Landmark Double-lung transplant After Years Of Decline
November 14, 2025 — by Transplant News

WORLD NEWS – MEXICO: Ulises Calvabravo will mark one year since receiving a double-lung transplant in Jalisco, a procedure that made him the first local resident to undergo a bipulmonary transplantation in the state. The operation, carried out with organs from a donor family in Colima, came at the end of a long medical decline that began in early 2021.

Ulises’s illness started with sudden episodes of breathlessness that woke him from sleep and severe, unexplained fatigue. Physicians diagnosed hypersensitivity pneumonitis, an inflammatory condition of the lungs, but they were unable to identify a clear cause. Before the transplant he endured repeated misdiagnoses and failed treatments, and his condition steadily worsened despite multiple attempts at care.

The transplant altered that trajectory. After the operation, his clinical course was described as satisfactory: mechanical ventilation was discontinued three days after surgery and rehabilitation therapies were begun. Ulises’s mother and family characterized the chance to receive a compatible donor as life‑changing and credited the donor family’s generosity with enabling his recovery.

Now 23, Ulises has returned to many aspects of normal life while following required medical precautions. He studies engineering in video games, socializes with friends, exercises and manages his diet as part of ongoing post‑transplant care. In the days surrounding his anniversary, his family plans a commemoration to honor the donor and to underscore that organ donation can save lives. Medical observers in the region view the historic Jalisco procedure as a step toward strengthening the culture of organ donation across the state and the country.