When heart or lungs or both get irreversibly damaged due to various reasons, then transplantation (replacing the damaged organ with a normally working organ) is the only option. For other organs like kidney and liver, live related donor transplantation is possible. That means one kidney or part of the liver can be taken from a suitable blood relation of the patient. However for heart and lungs, donor is a brain dead cadaver. When young people after an accident or sometimes with bleeding in brain, can become unconscious. If they are not recovering and when a team of doctors certify that patient has brain dead, after taking consent from the immediate family of the patient, heart and lungs can be taken for transplantation.
First successful heart transplantation in India was done on 3rd of August 1994 at All India Institute of Medical sciences, New Delhi by Prof Venugopal. He was awarded “Padma Sri” for his contribution. In the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Dr.Alla Gopala Krishna Gokhale did the first successful heart transplantation on 6th of February 2004 at Global Hospitals, Hyderabad and did the first successful single transplantation on 8th of September 2012 at Yashoda Hospital, Secunderabad. So far in India nearly 125 heart transplants and about 20 lung transplants are done.
It is estimated that nearly 50000 patients in India can benefit from heart transplantation and a larger number of people can benefit from lung transplantation.
Mr Ramesh who underwent Heart Transplantation on 6th of February, 2004.
Ms Archana who underwent single Lung Transplantation on 8th of September, 2012.
