Bengaluru: A maiden complex paediatric heart transplant was performed by Fortis Hospitals recently on a 13-year-old boy from Karnataka who was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy. The heart was harvested from a 20-year-old boy who met with a road accident and was declared brain dead in Visakhapatnam. A team of specialists from Fortis went to retrieve the heart and a green corridor helped the heart travel in just over an hour.
The heart transplant was performed by Dr K.R. Balakrishnan, Chief Cardiothoracic and Transplant Surgeon at Fortis Malar Hospital, Chennai, and Dr Vivek Jawali, Chief Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeon, Fortis Hospitals, Bengaluru.
The entire procedure, right from harvesting the donor’s heart in Visakhapatnam, its transit and the heart transplant surgery took only four hours and one minute.
