HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese doctors have successfully performed a heart transplant on a ten-year-old, believed to be the youngest recipient so far in Việt Nam.

The surgery was conducted by doctors of Việt Nam-Germany Hospital on Thursday. The donor was a brain-dead patient.

The doctor also performed liver and lung transplant surgeries on three other patients from the same donor on Wednesday.

Associate Professor Nguyễn Hữu Ước, head of the hospital’s Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Department, said the young patient was diagnosed with myocardial expansion due to final-stage heart failure.

Supported by modern equipment and medicine, the patient’s life would only increase by some months. Heart transplant surgery was the only effective treatment, he added.

Ước said this was a unique opportunity as the number of heart donors was few and the capacity to find a matching heart for young patients was next to impossible.

The surgery lasted some 13 hours. The patient’s condition was stable and the child was under supervision.

The liver recipient was a 34-year-old patient. He was diagnosed with a tumour in his liver in 2014. Two other patients underwent lung transplant surgeries. —VNS