Tough to find right heart for transplant, say cardiologists

Chennai: Heart is the most wasted organ from brain dead patients, according to city cardiologists. Availability of a healthy heart, timely harvest and availability of a suitable recipient are the reasons for the rejection of the organ, they add. “When a call is received from the hospital, where the brain dead is being treated, there are several things that can be checked orally, without sending the cardiologists team to the hospital.

These include checking the age of the donor, lifestyle  including smoking history, whether the patient is diabetic and has high cholesterol,” says Dr P. Harikrishnan, cardiologist, Apollo Hospitals. He says about 50 percent of the offers were rejected orally. Dr P. Manokar, Associate Professor of Cardiology at Sri Ramachandra University, says, “In the case of aged brain dead, angiogram should be done. This is not socially acceptable and convincing the patient’s relatives is also impossible.”

There is reluctance among doctors in using a heart that is revived. And some hearts are rejected, after harvesting and checking visually, he adds. Less than 10 per cent of the hearts reach the receiver, the cardiologists say.“In addition to lifestyle diseases like diabetes  and BP, stress is now  a common issue among public to affect heart,” notes Dr S. Thanikachalam, director of cardiac care centre, Sri Ramachandra University. Yet another problem is limited duration for the organ to be harvested and transplanted, apart from the fact that the number of institutions performing heart transplantation is very less.