Successful first heart transplant; young man gets new lease of life

The Department of Cardiac Surgery achieved yet another milestone by successfully performing 1st Heart Transplant surgery at KLES Dr. Prabhakar Kore Hospital Belagavi on 20th Feb, 2018. Team of Surgeons lead by Dr. Richard Saldahana achieved a rare feat by saving the life of a 32 year young patient.

The patient hails from low economic background and was suffering from Dilated Cardiomyopathy, where in the patient’s heart was enlarged and was not able to pump blood and the heart functioning was low to the extent of 20% (Ejection fraction).

Patient was put on intravenous drugs to maintain his blood pressure and had only months to live. Patient was suffering from breathlessness not capable to thrive and was becoming increasingly weak. The patient has made frenetic efforts & visited most of the super-specialty heart hospitals at Benagaluru and had no solace. As a last ray of hope, the worried care-takers rushed the patient to KLES Hospital. Chief of Cardio-thoracic Department Dr. Richard and team carried out battery of investigations and established that patient is fit for Heart Transplant. Patient was registered with “Jeevsarthakathe” Organ Transplant Authority, Govt of Karnataka.

A lady of 42 years was being treated by Senior Surgeon had suffered stroke in the brain and was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital. Her brain has suffered irreversible damage and was on ventilator. The relatives were counseled by the Surgeon and trained Transplant Coordinators of the Hospital for organ donation. The mother of the 42 years lady, sister & family members voluntarily and willingly consented for organ donation. The brain stem death declaration was performed twice in the span of 6 hours as per the laid down protocols by Dr. Ravishankar Naik, Head of Neruo Medicine and Dr. Ambarish Nerlikar, Intensivist. It was confirmed that the patient is brain dead and the heart functioning was good enough for retrieval & transplantation. Jeevsarthakathe, Benagaluru gave consent for heart transplantation.

The surgery was conducted between 2 am to 7 am on 20th Feb. 2018 in the Cardiac surgical unit of the hospital by the team of cardiothoracic surgeons and cardiac anesthesiologists comprising of Drs Richard Saldanha, Dr.Mohan Gan, Dr.Anand Vagarali, Dr. Sharanagouda Patil, Dr. Praveen Tambrallimath, Dr. Kiran Kurkure, Dr. Ravi Ghatnatti, Dr. Abhijeet Shitole, Dr. Jabbar Momin, Dr. Abhishek Prabhu, Dr. Nishit Udapi, Dr. Nikunj Vyas, Dr. Samrat Madnaik and Dr. Sujeet H. M.

The rest of the team comprised of perfusionists, operation theatre and intensive care nurses and physiotherapists.

Immediately the heart started beating to the normal tune. The post-operative care was jointly managed by team of Surgeons, Anaesthetists and Senior Nephrologist Dr. M S Khanpet. The recipient body has well accepted the heart and all the medical parameters are found to be well within normal limits.

Today is the 11th day after his heart transplant and he is well on the way to recovery with the donor heart functioning normally with no evidence of infection or rejection.

Dr. Prabhakar Kore, Chairman of KLE Society & Dr. M V Jali, Medical Director of the Hospital has praised the donor’s family for donating organ for good human cause and the young man got new lease of life due to self less organ donation. Dr. Kore further stressed the donors family is a role model to society and the families name will go down in the history of North Karnataka as the first family to donate the Heart. He congratulated the team of Surgeons, Anesthetists and all the members of the team for successful transplant. Jubilant Dr. Richard humbly admitted that it is a gigantic team effort with each members role is well defined. He also said the KLES Heart Centre, medical infrastructure can match best of the hospitals around the globe. Dr. Richard said over 50,000 people in the country need Heart Transplant and only over 350 heart transplants are performed since a decade. The emotional relatives of recipient have tears in their eyes and have thanked the family for organ donation also the Hospital staff for their absolute professional work.