• 8 years old Master Roman from Russia and 12 years old Ms Sri Supriya from Tamil Nadu were saved after a clinical breakthrough to place adult hearts into infant cavities
• First cases of adult to child heart transplant recorded in India as Fortis Malar joins rank among top hospitals in the world to successfully perform this clinical feat
Chennai, 20th March 2018: A team of doctors at Fortis Malar Hospital recently conducted two complicated heart transplant surgeries by placing adult hearts into the heart cavity of children to save two lives here recently. 8 years old Master Roman and 12 years old Ms Sri Supriya were suffering from life threatening heart conditions that required urgent heart transplants. However, due to paucity of hearts of their age and size, the team of doctors led by Dr KR Balakrishnan, Director, Cardiac Sciences, Fortis Malar Hospital and Dr Suresh Rao KG, Head of the Department, Critical Care and Cardiac Anaesthesia, Fortis Malar Hospital meticulously planned and performed this unique clinical feat to transplant two adult hearts into the cavity of these two children respectively.
The first heart transplant was performed on Master Roman, an 8-year-old boy from Russia who was admitted on 13th October 2017 at the hospital with prognosis of heart failure. Roman’s condition deteriorated with severe biventricular restrictive cardiomyopathy, a disease of heart muscle restricting flow of blood into the ventricles and his condition became more complicated when he had a cardiac arrest. After 45minutes of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), he was finally put on an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), an advanced cardiac and respiratory life support system.
On the condition of the patient, Dr KR Balakrishnan said, “When Roman was brought into our hospital, he was in a critical condition. A heart transplant was the only way to cure him. We had to resort to ECPR to save his life until a heart was available for transplant. However, given the severity of his condition, we decided to do the transplant as soon as we can.”
