A team of doctors at a hospital in Chennai, India, have conducted two complicated heart transplant surgeries by placing adult hearts into the heart cavity of children.

Doctors at Fortis Malar Hospital were forced to perform the rare surgeries on two children due to a paucity of hearts of their age and size.

Though the surgeries were done a few months ago, the hospital released the details recently after the children made a full recovery.

The first heart transplant was performed on Roman, an 8-year-old boy from Russia, who was admitted to the hospital with a prognosis of heart failure.

Roman’s condition deteriorated and he suffered a cardiac arrest as well.

A heart was made available when a donor was involved in a road accident and was declared brain dead.

After careful planning, a team of doctors implanted an adult’s heart into an eight-year old’s cavity.

Dr KR Balakrishnan said: “It gives us immense pleasure that the eight-year-old patient responded to the adult heart. It is one of those rarest surgeries that has paved the way for a completely new beginning in the treatment of paediatric cardiac patients requiring heart transplants.”

In a similar case, another heart transplant was performed on 12-year-old Supriya from Tamil Nadu, India. Supriya had a failing heart and required a transplant surgery.

As only an adult donor heart was available, the surgeons implanted it into the cavity of the 12-year-old child with excellent results.

Commenting on Supriya’s case, Dr Suresh Rao KG, said: “This surgery gives a ray of hope to all children with heart failure.”

A team of doctors at a Chennai hospital recently conducted two complicated heart transplant surgeries by placing adult hearts into the heart cavity of children.
Doctors at Fortis Malar Hospital were forced to perform the rare surgeries on two children due to paucity of hearts of their age and size.

Though the surgeries were done a few months ago, the hospital released the details recently after the children made a full recovery.

The first heart transplant was performed on Roman, an 8-year- old boy from Russia, who was admitted at the hospital with prognosis of heart failure. Roman’s condition deteriorated and he suffered a cardiac arrest as well.

A heart was made available when a donor met with a road accident and was declared brain dead. After careful planning, a team of doctors implanted an adult’s heart into an 8-year old’s cavity.

Dr KR Balakrishnan said: “It gives us immense pleasure that the 8-year-old patient responded to the adult heart. It is one of those rarest surgeries that has paved the way for a completely new beginning in the treatment of paediatric cardiac patients requiring heart transplants.”

In a similar case, another heart transplant was performed on 12-year-old Supriya from Tamil Nadu, India. Supriya had a failing heart and required a transplant surgery.
As only an adult donor heart was available the surgeons implanted it into the cavity of the 12-year- old child with excellent result.

Commenting on Supriya’ s case, Dr Suresh Rao KG, said: “This surgery gives a ray of hope to all children with heart failure.”