The highly complex operation, of which only 20-25 are performed in the world per year, was jointly performed by the teams of the First Medical Association of Lviv and the Heart Institute. A 38-year-old woman from the Kyiv region received the organocomplex. In total, four people were given a chance to live: doctors also transplanted a liver and two kidneys.
Ms. Nina had a heart defect from birth. Later, this defect also damaged the lungs. The woman waited 15 long years for a transplant, 9 months of which were in India. And almost lost hope.
“Every year it becomes more and more difficult for me to live, I can barely climb to the third floor. I just want to try how to live normally, what a full life is. This is a chance for me, which I grab, to just… breathe,” said the woman before the operation.
The transplant lasted 10 hours. The heart and lungs started working on the operating table.
“A historic event not only for our hospital, but also for the whole of Ukraine. We joined forces and performed an operation that is considered one of the most difficult in the world. It took more than three years. I am proud of our doctors who, despite the war, are moving towards transplantation independence in Ukraine. The person got a chance to live, we rejoice, but very quietly, because the surgical stage is only a part of the journey,” says Oleg Samchuk, general director of the First Medical Association of Lviv.
Currently, the patient is in intensive care in a stable condition. Ahead is a difficult road to recovery.
An 18-year-old boy who tragically died in a road accident became an organ donor. Doctors fought for the boy’s life, but the injuries turned out to be incompatible with life. Bright memory to the boy and sincere words of thanks to the family for making a difficult decision.
In addition to the heart-lungs, a liver and two kidneys were also transplanted, one of which the child received. In total, four people got a chance to live.
“We have been preparing for this operation for more than three years. First they started transplanting hearts, then lungs. And finally, the heart-lung 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,” said Roman Domasych, head of the department of cardiac surgery and heart transplantation at St. Panteleimon Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv, after leaving the operating room.