Doctors at HCM City’s Chợ Rẫy Hospital transplant a heart donated by a brain-dead donor in a 47-year-old man who suffered from heart failure and possibly had little chance of survival without the transplant. — Photo courtesy of the hospital

HCM CITY — A 47-year-old man in HCM City with end-stage heart failure received a heart transplant with the donor being a brain-dead road accident victim in Hà Nội, doctors at HCM City’s Chợ Rẫy Hospital said.

B.V.P., a manual worker who had suffered heart failure many years, received the heart last month, Assoc Prof Nguyễn Quyết Tiến, deputy director of the hospital, told a meeting on Tuesday.

On May 13, the National Coordination Centre for Organ Transplantation informed the hospital about a 47-year-old woman who died in a traffic accident. Her family agreed to donate her organs for transplant.

The heart was transported to Chợ Rẫy Hospital by air on the same day and the three-hour surgery was performed that night.

The recipient and donor had many compatible factors such as similar ages and same size of heart though they had different blood types, Tiến said.

“His chance of surviving without a heart transplant was almost zero.”

The man said he can now sleep well and walk normally.

Doctors said his heart, liver, kidney and respiratory functions are stable.

The hospital’s doctors have successfully performed five heart transplants with the brain-dead donors in the last five years. They were assisted by doctors from Việt Đức Hospital in the first four, but in the latest case they carried out the procedure independently. — VNS