Hyderabad: There are two hearts beating in a 56-year-old man from Vijayawada who suffered from end-stage heart failure and urgently required another heart to stay alive.
The brain dead donor was a 17-year-old boy from Karimnagar. But, was a major mismatch due to age, so it was decided to keep the old heart rather than replacing it.
The old heart continues to beat in the middle-aged man and the new heart will complement the old one by allowing it to pump blood properly into the body. This procedure is called heterotopic or piggyback heart transplant.
Dr A.G. Krishna Gokhale, senior heart and lung transplant surgeon at Apollo Hospital, Jubilee Hills, said the decision to allow the old heart to continue was taken because the donor was young.
“The man was in the end-stage of heart disease. The blood pressure dipped drastically, lung pressure was uncontrollably high and his condition continued to deteriorate. This was the last resort to save him.”
This is the third time this very rare procedure has been performed in India and the first in both Telugu states.
