Chennai-based multi-specialty hospital MGM Healthcare has claimed to have performed Asia’s first bilateral lung transplant on a coronavirus-positive patient. Surgeons at the hospital conducted a bilateral (double-lung) transplant on the infected patient who was airlifted from Delhi.
The donor was a 34-year-old man, declared brain dead at the Apollo Gleneagles Global Hospital after suffering intra-cerebral hemorrhage on Thursday. His also agreed to donate his heart, liver and skin to various recipients in city hospitals.
Incidentally, the hands were airlifted to Mumbai with the hope of giving the woman a real pair of limbs after she lost hers in a mishap at Ghatkopar railway station on January 12, 2014.
The bilateral lung transplant was led by Dr KR Balakrishnan, Director of the Heart & Lung Transplant programme at MGM Healthcare hospital. Dr Balakrishnan said it was commendable that the doctors stood by the decision to perform the transplant and put their own lives at risk.
The hospital in a statement said the 48-year-old man’s lungs were severely affected by coronavirus-related fibrosis and as his oxygen saturation slipped, a hospital in Ghaziabad put him on ventilator and subsequently on ECMO. He was moved to Chennai on July 20.
While Global Hospital Chennai retained the liver, the heart, lungs, kidneys and skin were donated to different hospitals in the city. His hands went to Monika More, a young woman from Mumbai who was using artificial hands and is now set to get a real pair, if the bilateral surgery succeeds.
The heart and lung transplant surgeries were performed at MGM Healthcare.
(With inputs from PTI)
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