Medical miracle in Hue: Simultaneous heart, liver, and cornea transplants across Vietnam

On the morning of June 19, Hue Central Hospital announced that it had successfully performed four simultaneous organ transplants, including heart, liver and cornea transplants, from organ donors across Vietnam. To date, all patients are conscious, able to sit up and recovering well.

Previously, on June 12, Hue Central Hospital received information on coordinating tissues and organs from brain-dead donors provided by the National Coordination Center for Human Organ Transplantation.

On June 13, the hospital's medical team went to Ho Chi Minh City, coordinating with Thong Nhat Hospital and 108 Military Central Hospital to remove the heart, liver and cornea.

Due to the impact of storm No. 1 and unfavorable flight schedules, the organ transportation process encountered many difficulties, requiring a combination of many journeys by car and plane.

Thanks to effective coordination, the process of organ retrieval and preservation was shortened. All tissues and organs were loaded onto the plane at 8:46 p.m. on June 13 and landed safely at Phu Bai International Airport at 10:28 p.m. the same day.

Immediately afterwards, surgical teams urgently performed transplants at night to save the lives of critically ill patients.

The heart was transplanted to a patient with end-stage dilated cardiomyopathy, very poor heart function (LVEF only 17-21%), and had suffered multiple cardiac arrests, threatening his life.

After the transplant, the heart beat again in the recipient's chest at 0:35 on June 14, after 5:30 hours of cold ischemia, with three medium-dose cardiac drugs and 66 minutes of extracorporeal circulation support.

The liver was transplanted to a child born in 2009 with congenital biliary atresia, who had Kasai surgery (biliary atresia surgery) at two months old and had been treated at Hue Central Hospital for many years.

The patient had secondary biliary cirrhosis with a MELD score (a scale to assess the severity of liver disease) of more than 30, recurrent biliary tract infections 1-2 times/year, and had to undergo esophageal variceal ligation five times. His life was very fragile.

After completion of the hepatic veins, portal vein, and hepatic artery with a cold ischemia time of 6 h45, the liver was reperfused at 1 h53 on June 14.

The two heart and liver transplant patients were transferred to the intensive care unit immediately after surgery. By 9 p.m. the same day, both were conscious, hemodynamically stable, test results within acceptable limits, and were taken off the ventilator.

Up to now, six days after surgery, the liver transplant patient has good graft function, has returned to eating and light exercise, and no clinical abnormalities have been recorded.

At the same time, two patients with corneal dystrophy, one of whom was completely blind, received corneal transplants. Each procedure lasted about an hour, with doctors removing the diseased cornea, replacing it with a donor cornea, and stitching it back together with microsurgical stitches.

After surgery, the patients' vision gradually recovered and they are being monitored and taking anti-rejection drugs.

Professor, Doctor Pham Nhu Hiep, Director of Hue Central Hospital said: Each organ transplant is a miraculous journey, where life continues from love and compassion.

This success is the result of close coordination between the National Coordination Center for Organ Transplantation and hospitals, along with the great efforts and solid expertise of the medical team.

Even more noble is the humane sacrifice of organ donors and their families - those who chose to give their lives in moments of great loss, contributing to reviving lives that are as fragile as a candle in the wind./.

(TTXVN/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/ky-tich-y-khoa-tai-hue-dong-loat-ghep-tim-gan-giac-mac-xuyen-viet-post1045104.vnp