Coimbatore man has two beating hearts after heterotopic transplantation
The patient who underwent heterotopic heart transplantation at Kovai Medical Center and Hospital.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
A 48-year-old man from Coimbatore now has two beating hearts following a recent heterotopic, or piggyback, heart transplantation, in which surgeons implant a donor heart without removing the native heart.
The surgery was performed by a team led by Dr. Prashant Vaijyanath, Director of the Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery at Kovai Medical Center and Hospital, Coimbatore.
Dr. Vaijyanath explained that the patient, who had been unable to work for over a year due to cardiac issues and high lung pressure, had suffered multiple heart attacks and undergone stenting. With his heart functioning at roughly 7%, he was unable to perform even basic tasks, such as brushing his teeth, and his lung function was also severely affected.
“He was registered for a heart-lung transplantation. However, he was allotted only a donor heart by the government’s organ transplant authority, so we opted for a heterotopic heart transplantation to ensure that the two hearts together could manage the high lung pressure,” Dr. Vaijyanath explained.
The MRI image of the donor heart and native heart of the man who underwent heterotopic heart transplantation at Kovai Medical Center and Hospital recently.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
In a three-hour procedure, the donor heart was transplanted onto the patient, placing it on the right side of his chest cavity.
“After the successful transplantation, the next significant challenge was to synchronise the beating of the two hearts. This was achieved over approximately a week using a temporary pacemaker, which was later removed. Now, the two hearts beat in harmony, like twin hearts,” said Dr. Vaijyanath.
The patient will remain under post-operative care at the hospital for 21 days.
In 2017, Dr. Vaijyanath and his team performed the first heterotopic heart transplantation on a man from Kerala. Unfortunately, the patient passed away during the Kerala floods the following year after contracting pneumonia.
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