3 patients have ray of hope for donor heart and lungs

Three city patients in dire need of both heart and lung transplant are clinging on to the hope of getting the organs after registering themselves on the city's cadaver organ waiting list.

The Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC) said that the patients are suffering from both end-stage heart and lung disease and registered a month ago for the organs. The committee is now pushing the cause and has informed other state hospitals working on organ donation programme to notify them in case they have a brain dead patient with family consent for donating organs.

ZTCC is a non-governmental organisation that coordinates and promotes cadaver organ donation.

It was in August 2015 that the heart transplant programme picked up in the city. Since then, there have been 17 heart transplants. Doctors say that compared to a heart transplant, heart-lung transplant is a more complex surgery.

Dr KR Balakrishnan, director of cardiac sciences at Fortis Malar Hospital, who has conducted all the heart and lung transplant surgeries, said that getting a donor for such patients is difficult. "Donor with a suitable heart and lung is rare. Depending on when the person was registered for the organs, a patient needing both heart and lung transplant can survive for at least a year without the transplant," said Balakrishnan.

Currently, for a patient requiring heart-lung transplant, hospitals in South are the only hope. Last year in July, Rahul Thakur (21) from Maharahstra got the heart-lung transplant surgery done in Chennai's Fortis Malar hospital. However, he died eight months after the surgery.

Dr Sanjeev Jadhav, heart transplant surgeon at Fortis hospital, said: "The mortality and morbidity associated with heart and lung transplant is more than that of heart transplant alone. Apart from it being a complex surgery, the technicalities are also different. Not all donors can donate a heart and lungs. The specification and criteria are very stringent."

Jadhav said that they are constantly on a lookout for suitable donors. "After the heart transplant programme was started in Mumbai, there has been a massive revolution in the organ transplant programme. We hope that we get suitable donors soon for these three patients as well," said Jadhav.

When is a heart-lung transplant needed?

A heart-lung transplant is the only treatment available for a patient who has both end-stage heart and lung disease and all the other treatment options have failed. The world's first successful combined heart-lung transplant was performed at the Stanford Hospital, California in 1981.