A Chinese hospital said on Sunday it had successfully
transplanted a heart, liver and kidney into one patient, the first
such operation in the country.
The transplant lasted 16 hours and ended early on Sunday
morning. The 47-year-old female patient had come around and was
recovering, said Dr. Dou Kefeng of the Xijing Hospital
hepatobiliary surgery department.
The hospital in Xi'an, capital of the northwestern Shaanxi
Province, is known for conducting the first face transplant in
China, the second globally, in 2006.
The multi-transplant patient was diagnosed with uraemia and
liver cancer when she came to the hospital on Jan. 8.
However, doctors found a dilated cardiomyopathy, a disorder of
the heart muscle, while planning the kidney and liver transplants.
This meant she required a new heart first.
Dou said the patient was in critical and could have died before
the Spring Festival that falls on Thursday if the transplants
weren't undertaken.
The hospital decided to conduct the surgery at the request of
the patient and her family. It wrote off the operation cost, as the
family from a small Shaanxi Province village could not afford to
pay.
More than 30 experts were involved in the complicated operation.
Cardiologists first spent more than three hours to transfer a
healthy heart. Liver experts then operated for five hours before
the kidney transplant.
Nearly 1,000 stitches were made during the surgery.
(Xinhua News Agency February 4, 2008)