Preparations at the General Hospital, Ernakulam, for its first heart transplant surgery are in the final stages.
The works received a boost after the institution received the licence to perform the heart transplant procedure from the Kerala State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (K-SOTTO) in the first week of December last year.
The hospital authorities said the first transplant surgery was likely to be held in February, if everything went as planned. Screening of patients with severe heart failure and requiring transplants is being done at the heart clinic of the hospital.
The heart clinic will also provide patients expert care. Besides, steps had been taken to set up the necessary infrastructure to carry out transplant procedures, they said.
Doctors at the hospital had successfully performed a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure on an 83-year-old female patient in November last year. The patient had approached the hospital seeking treatment for blockages in the arteries. TAVR is a less invasive procedure than open heart surgery and involves pushing a new valve into the patient’s existing valve through a small hole in the thigh.
They had also successfully performed TAVR to replace the heart valve of a 69-year-old male patient from Perumbavoor without conducting an open heart surgery in 2022. The hospital had performed its first kidney transplant in November, 2023.
Published – January 13, 2025 08:27 pm IST