Doctors of the Vietnam-Germany Friendship Hospital perform the transplant on February 15. (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – The first heart and kidney transplant on one patient
in Vietnam was successfully performed on February 15 by doctors of the Vietnam-Germany
Friendship Hospital, the hospital announced on February 24.
The transplanted organs were taken from a .
Associate Professor Nguyen Huu Uoc, director of the hospital’s Cardiovascular
and Thoracic Centre, said the patient who received the organs is a 37-year-old
man living in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai. He suffered from
dilated cardiomyopathy, heart failure and severe arrhythmias, leading to
end-stage renal failure.
He underwent hemodialysis continuously for five to six years and often received
emergency treatment at major cardiovascular centres in Ho Chi Minh City and Thua
Thien-Hue province.
Due to ineffective treatment, he was instructed by doctors to have a heart and
kidney transplant.
In mid-2022, he was introduced to the .
After careful evaluation, the hospital’s experts agreed to perform a
simultaneous heart and kidney transplant for the patient with donated organs
from a brain-dead donor.
Transplanting both organs at the same time is a big challenge, requiring
doctors to be well prepared, Uoc said.
In six months since the transplantation decision was made, no donated
brain-dead organ truly matched, and the patient had to continue to visit
hospitals for heart and kidney treatment.
In early February 2023, one woman who had a brain death due to a severe
traumatic brain injury after a traffic accident donated multiple organs with
family consensus.
The transplant surgery lasted for 10 hours from 9am to 7pm on February 15 with
the participation of doctors from five centres and clinical departments.
It took the team three hours to take out the organs, five hours to transplant
the heart and two hours to transplant the kidney.
“The transplantation was performed successfully thanks to skillful cooperation
between heart, and anaesthesia resuscitation technicians as
well as careful preparation of medical facilities and advanced equipment,” said
Professor Tran Binh Giang, the hospital’s director.
The patient’s heart and kidney recovered fully on February 24, eight days after
the transplant.
He can sit up, eat and communicate without special assistance.
He will undergo further post-transplant treatment in the next few weeks.
This was the first time Vietnamese doctors have successfully performed a
transplant of heart and kidney organs on one patient.
Vietnamese doctors have performed two organ transplants on one patient three
times.
Two years ago, the Vietnam-Germany Hospital doctors conducted a liver and
kidney transplant on a patient.
Source: VietnamPlus
