For the first time, a unique operation was performed in Lviv (Ukraine). A heart-lung complex was transplanted. Around the world, 20-25 such operations are performed per year.
The teams of the First Medical Association of Lviv and the Heart Institute worked on the operation.
The transplant lasted 10 hours. The heart and lungs started working on the operating table. 38-year-old Nina from the Kyiv region received the organs. She has a heart defect from birth, and later it damaged her lungs. The woman waited 15 years for a transplant. Nina said that every year it becomes more and more difficult for her to live, she can barely climb to the third floor.
Now the woman is in the intensive care unit in a stable condition, and her recovery is ahead. An 18-year-old boy who died in a road accident became an organ donor.
"We have been preparing for this operation for more than three years. First they started transplanting hearts, then lungs. And finally, the heart-lungs organ complex. It was extremely difficult to reach this stage, but we did it, Ukrainian medicine did it! Now we are also performing an operation that is performed in few places in the world," noted the head of the department of cardiac surgery and heart transplantation at St. Panteleimon Hospital Roman Domashych.
- Organ transplantation operations in Ukraine have become possible since April 2019, when the relevant law came into force. In particular, it regulates the transplantation of organs from a deceased person. In addition, a section will appear in the "Diia" application where you can leave a statement of consent to become a donor after death. During this time, a childʼs heart was transplanted for the first time, then a liver from a posthumous donor was transplanted to a one-year-old child for the first time. In 2021, doctors performed 234 transplants in Ukrainian hospitals — this is more than during the entire period of the countryʼs independence.