Hanoi (VNA) – A 41-year-old man suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy leading to heart, liver and kidney failure, with a life expectancy of just a few days, recently received a simultaneous heart and liver transplant from a brain dead donor.
The man was admitted to Việt Đức Hospital at the end of September and kept alive using an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine. “The only option to save him was to replace the heart and liver simultaneously,” Dr. Dương Đức Hùng, director of Việt Đức Hospital, informed a press conference on October 9.
At the same time, Việt Đức Hospital received information from Nghệ An Friendship General Hospital, one of its satellite establishments, regarding a patient with severe brain damage who no longer had any hope of survival. The patient’s family had expressed the wish to donate his organs.
A team from Việt Đức Hospital went to Nghệ An to stabilize the patient, assess the state of brain death and the viability of the organs to be transplanted. On October 1, doctors confirmed brain death and the possibility of using the organs to save other patients.
At the same time, in Hanoi, a meeting of the medical council was convened with experts in the fields of resuscitation, cardiology, hepatology and nephrology. It was a complex surgical procedure, requiring careful assessment of different situations, as the patient’s liver, heart and kidneys were all terminally ill, with a high risk of death. During the meeting, some felt that it was impossible to carry out a transplant due to the critical condition of the patient, while others suggested transplanting only the heart or the liver, but not both simultaneously, says Dr. Hùng.
However, the hospital’s scientific council decided to proceed with the double transplant. A team of doctors from Việt Đức Hospital stayed at Nghệ An Friendship General Hospital to perform two simultaneous kidney transplants, while another team quickly transported the harvested organs to Hanoi. After more than three hours of travel, the organs arrived at Việt Đức hospital.
The donor’s heart and liver were transplanted into the recipient’s body. After 8 hours of surgery, the new heart started beating. After 36 hours, liver and heart functions gradually recovered. “The new heart has completely replaced the old one, and liver functions are gradually improving. The patient has been extubated and is now conscious,” informed the director of Việt Đức Hospital.
Currently, after more than a week of transplantation, the patient can speak, his heart function is improving every day, his liver function is almost back to normal, and bile is secreted with good quality.
“This is the first time in the history of Vietnamese medicine that doctors have succeeded in simultaneously performing a heart-liver transplant on a patient at a serious stage,” said Associate Professor Nguyên Tiên Quyêt, former director of the Việt Đức hospital – a prominent expert in organ transplantation, adding that “Việt can completely master all techniques, especially the most difficult ones in organ transplantation.” – CPV/VNA
