New Delhi, Feb 3 (PTI) A 43-year-old patient who had been suffering from a cardiac ailment has received a new lease of life after undergoing an over 10-hour heart transplant surgery at a leading private hospital here, as he received the organ from another ailing man, doctors said on Friday.
The organ, retrieved from a 48-year-old brain-dead man, was ferried from AIIMS, Delhi to Fortis Escorts Heart Institute (FEHI) at Okhla, in an ambulance covering a distance of 9.2 km in 12 minutes amid traffic rush with the help of a green corridor, the hospital authorities said.
A team of doctors led by Dr Z S Meharwal, executive director and head of adult cardiac surgery, VAD & Heart Transplantation Programme, FEHI, and Dr Vishal Rastogi, director, interventional cardiology & head, heart failure and Dr Nishith Chandra, principal director, interventional cardiology, transplanted the heart in the recipient, FEHI said in a statement.
The donor had suffered brain hemorrhage and was admitted to AIIMS Trauma Centre on January 31 and was declared brain dead on February 1. The family gave the consent for donating his organs, it said.
Doctors successfully transplanted the heart in the 43-year-old patient “who had been suffering from ischemic cardiomyopathy with LV dysfunction,” it added.
“The surgery lasted for more than 10 hours. In addition to routine care which is required for any patient undergoing major cardiac surgery, a heart transplant patient needs optimum immunosuppressive therapy (anti-rejection drugs) to prevent rejection of the donor’s heart by the recipient,” Dr Meharwal said.
The recipient had first time come to the emergency wing with acute heart attack in 2010 and had undergone angioplasty post which he recovered well. But in 2012, he developed deep vein thrombosis for which he was on anticoagulants and was managed medically till the beginning of 2022.
Gradually, the patient started feeling breathless while carrying routine activities and his heart functioning also reduced to 25 per cent post which he was hospitalised for further treatment of failing heart, Dr Chandra said.
Last year, the recipient had undergone multiple admissions for heart failure at FEHI and was listed for heart transplant at NOTTO. After eight weeks of waiting, he received a heart, the statement said.
The surgery was challenging as there was a “significant mismatch” in the size of the chambers of the heart of the donor and recipient”, the doctors said. PTI KND CK
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