HÀ NỘI — Doctors from HCM City’s Bình Dân 115 Hospital have successfully performed a kidney transplant on a 76-year-old patient.

The elderly man is the oldest kidney transplant patient in the hospital and in Việt Nam, so far.

Kidney functions of patient Đào Ngọc V., from the southern province of Đồng Nai, returned to normal two weeks following the transplant. He was discharged from the hospital in stable heath, head of the hospital’s Kidney and Transplantation Immunisation Department Tạ Phương Dung said.

The patient faced a high risk of fatality following the kidney failure at a late stage. He had already received peritoneal dialysis treatment for more than a year. He was also diagnosed with a number of other health issues, such as high blood pressure, diabetes type 2 and heart problems.

To prepare for the transplant, V. was sent to the city’s Heart Hospital to place three stents for treating his coronary heart disease. The kidney donor is L.V.T.D, 27, a relative of the patient.

Dung said a kidney transplant was the only way to save the man. The transplant required thorough preparation and good collaborations between doctors of many specialties, keeping in mind blood coagulation has occurred previously and during the transplant.

Dung said there was no age limit for a kidney transplant. Many kidney transplant patients died due to other reasons even as their transplanted kidneys continued to work well.

Previously, three 69-year-old patients underwent kidney transplants at the Bình Dân 115 Hospital. Two of them are healthy four and 10 years after the transplants. The third died, six years after the surgery due to large intestine cancer, Dung said.

Till date, Việt Nam has successfully performed more than 2,400 kidney transplant surgeries in 18 hospitals and medical facilities nationwide since the first successfull kidney transplant at the Military Medical Institute in 1992. — VNS