(ANSA) – TURIN, SEPTEMBER 29 – The transplant of the heart and liver en bloc, as if they were a single organ, saved the life of a 38-year-old woman with heart disease who had already undergone heart surgery several times. The operation – of which there are no known precedents in Italy and Europe, and few cases in the United States – was performed at the Molinette hospital in the Città della Salute in Turin.
The patient, from Rome, had been registered, due to the severity of her condition, in the national list of urgent transplants, managed by the National Transplant Center, in collaboration with the Piedmont Regional Centre.
The operation, which lasted a total of 12 hours, was planned by the multidisciplinary transplant team in Turin and its exceptional nature lies precisely in having maintained the normal connection of the heart with the liver. A type of transplant – the doctors explain – which “allows us to minimize the time of ischemic suffering of the organs before being transplanted, thus offering a better recovery of their function immediately after the transplant”.
The heart and liver were taken from a donor in Lombardy, in Turin a double team removed the diseased heart and at the same time removed the liver of the 38-year-old patient, who was kept alive thanks to extracorporeal heart-lung circulation.
Cardiac and liver surgeons performed the vascular connections at the same time and, once circulation was restored in the multi-organ block, both the heart and the liver began to function again.
The patient is now awake and breathing independently; admitted to the Molinette Cardiac Surgery intensive care unit, she will then be transferred to the inpatient department. (HANDLE).
2024-09-29 11:29:26