The Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) has accomplished another milestone in transplant surgery. PGIMER has successfully performed its first lung transplant surgery on July 11, 2017, on a 35-year-old woman from Punjab. A highly complex and critical operation took place for 12 hours and was successfully completed by a team of 20 doctors.
Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons, Dr. Harkat Singh Baryah and Dr. Randip Singh along with Anaesthetists Dr. Virendra K. Arya and Dr. G.D. Puri supervised the surgery. A doctor who took part in the surgery revealed that the lung transplant was performed on a woman from Sangrurur district of Punjab. Bhola Singh, a 22-year-old man who was declared as brain dead donated the organ that helped the woman survive. She was suffering from interstitial lung disease.
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Bhola Singh who donated the organ met with an accident and suffered a grievous head injury. He was in a critical condition and was admitted to the Faridkot hospital. However, he was unable to survive due to severe head injury and was declared brain dead. After taking consent from Singh’s family, the doctors performed lung transplantation using his organs.
Apart from lungs, the family members of Singh also agreed to donate his kidneys, liver and cornea. These organs will be matched and given to the recipients at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER).
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Dr. Jagat Ram Director of PGIMER revealed that PGIMER is the first institute in the region to perform a lung transplant. Today, organ transplants are becoming common in India whereas the lung transplant is rare as it involves the complex process. The selection of recipients for the lung transplant is ought to be done carefully, he added.
So far, the institute has successfully performed kidney, heart, liver and cornea transplants.