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Today a 69 year old man is walking out with a 24 old year old heart, writing a new record in the history of Heart Transplantation in India and creating hope for many patients with damaged hearts.. This patient was suffering from a heart disease- restrictive cardio-myopathy for the last 10 years. He had a defibrillator cum pacemaker put in USA. Despite the medication and pacemaker his condition continued to worsen to the extent that he stopped moving out of the house except for admissions in the hospital for swelling of feet and breathing difficulty. With these he opted for heart transplantation. On 16th of February, the relations of a 24year old victim of road accident came forward for donating organs. His heart was used to replace the damaged heart of the 69 year old man. Despite the age , patient recovered fast and is being discharged 9 days after surgery. In the world, oldest person to undergo Heart Transplantation was a 71 year old person in Australia.
In the world, Heart Transplantation is a well established procedure to treat patients with end-stage heart failure. As per ISHLT (International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation) data, over one lakh heart transplants were done so far in the world. Every year in USA alone, more than 3500 heart transplants are done. 10 year survival following heart transplantation is around 60%. However in India, pickup of this procedure has been slow. Since the first heart transplant done in India in 1994, only a little over 100 heart transplants are done in India in a handful of centers.
Lack of awareness among the public and professionals is the main reason. In the last few years, thanks to the media, this problem is being tackled. The incidence of patients in India with end-stage heart failure needing heart transplantation is 100,000.