The patient was suffering from Postpartum Cardiomyopathy
Yashoda Hospitals performed a successful heart transplantation on Venkata Ramya, a 25-year old young mother from Pitthapuram, East Godavari district. The heart transplantation was performed on December 15, 2013 by a team of cardiothoracic surgeons headed by Dr AGK Gokhale, Chief Cardiothoracic, Transplant and Minimal Access Surgeon and Dr G Subramanyam, Senior Consultant Anaesthetist.
Since the birth of her baby girl seven years ago, Ramya had been suffering from a heart condition called ‘Postpartum Cardiomyopathy,’ where the heart started failing slowly. This rare condition starts during pregnancy and continues to worsen after delivery. She used to breathless while walking, suffered from swollen feet and she could not even lie down flat due to her condition. She needed repeated admissions for this heart failure. Her treating cardiologist at Kakinada suggested that the only option left for her now was heart transplantation and referred her to Dr Gokhale at Yashoda Hospital, Secunderabad. Ramya was evaluated for heart transplantation by Dr Gokhale and Dr Rajasekhar, Consultant Cardiologist, Yashoda Hospitals. After waiting for nearly a month for a donor, the attendants of a 21-year male patient who was declared brain dead on the eve of December 15 after a motor vehicle accident agreed to donate the organ.
Dr Gokhale and Dr Sudhakar, Consultant Anaesthetist went to the donor hospital and evaluated the heart condition. Once they were satisfied, Dr Gokhale and his team removed the heart from the donor and brought it to Yashoda hospital in 10 minutes time with the help of police escort. The patient was brought in and after explaining the procedure to her and the risks involved, with her consent, the transplantation surgery was undertaken. The medical team modified the standard technique of transplantation so that the transplanted heart started getting blood supply within hours after it was removed from the donor. This made the heart work better and patient became conscious and started talking within 10 hours of the surgery. On the second post-operative day she started walking, making a recovery similar to bypass surgery.
Joyous with the success, Dr Gokhale said, “Organ transplantations like heart and lung are the new hope for those suffering from end-stage organ failure. Transplantations not only save lives but also help patients live longer. Our past experience of performing seven heart transplants helped us reduce the ischemic time to two hours which made the recovery of patient very fast like any other routine open heart surgery.”
Expressing his happiness over this successful heart transplantation, Dr GS Rao, Managing Director, Yashoda Group of Hospitals said, “Recognising the importance of transplantations in saving lives, we’ve established world-class facilities for both heart and lung transplantations. With this surgery, we have taken the medical facilities in AP. to the next level making us a world-class centre performing the largest number of successful transplantations with fastest recovery. Fast recovery after this rare and difficult operation was possible only because of highly experienced team in heart and lung transplantations in Andhra Pradesh.”
EH News Bureau