New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) A Delhi hospital performed heart transplants on two brothers 11 years apart after both developed a rare inherited heart condition that led to end-stage heart failure, doctors said on Thursday.
According to Fortis Escorts, Okhla, the younger brother (27) recently underwent a heart transplant after being diagnosed with advanced Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM), a disease in which the heart muscle becomes enlarged and weak, reducing its ability to pump blood effectively.
The hospital said the elder brother had developed similar symptoms at the age of 16 and underwent a heart transplant at the same hospital in 2015 after his condition worsened despite medical treatment.
Doctors said the younger sibling later began experiencing progressive breathlessness, reduced exercise capacity and repeated hospital admissions due to heart failure before being diagnosed with the same condition.
The recent transplant involved technical challenges because of differences in the size of the donor and recipient blood vessels, requiring specialised surgical procedures during the operation, the hospital said.
The donor was a 37-year-old man from Rohtak who died due to intracranial haemorrhage, it added.
Dr Z S Meharwal, chairman and head of adult cardiac surgery, heart transplantation and VAD programme at Fortis Escorts, said the hospital has so far carried out 23 heart transplants.
“Following the diagnosis of the younger sibling, doctors advised cardiac screening for other family members,” Meharwal said, adding that the case highlighted the impact of genetic heart disease and the role of heart transplantation in treating complex heart failure cases.
Dr Vishal Rastogi, director of cardiology at the hospital, said the pattern strongly suggested familial cardiomyopathy, in which an inherited genetic mutation may remain undetected for years before weakening the heart muscle.
Dr Vikram Aggarwal, facility director and vice-president at Fortis Escorts, said it was, to their knowledge, the first reported case in India of two brothers suffering from familial cardiomyopathy undergoing successful heart transplants 11 years apart at the same hospital by the same surgical team. PTI SGV KSI KSI KSI
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