The first lung transplantation patient of Viet Duc University Hospital is discharged

13/11/2019 07:33

On October 18^th, 2019, Cardio-vascular and Thoracic Center (Viet Duc University Hospital -VDUH) congratulated Nguyen Van Duc (male, 18 years old, from Thanh Mien – Hai Duong province) is discharged after his lung transplantation.

 

Before it, Duc is a lung transplant patient, who received a lung from a brain dead donor on December 12^th, 2018. It’s the first lung transplantation performed by the physicians of VDUH.

At that time he was in a critical condition: 5 year fighting against his langerhan cell histiocytosis disease.  Before the operation, he was predicted to survive by minute or second because of his entire lung failure. There was no choice for him except lung transplantation that must be performed by Vietnamese physicians, who have never done it before.

 

Ass. Prof. Nguyen Huu Uoc – Director of Cardio-vascular and Thoracic Center (VDUH) said: it is confirmed that it was a miracle for Duc, because there are many cases waiting for lung transplantation for years without donor and the patient finally died; or in case there was a donor, but receiver came to the hospital in respiratory failure, thus transplantation could not be conducted.

 

“We can say that Duc’s case is a challenge for both patient and physician teams (approximately 500 staff). We have to run a race with time, against “The Death” to regain his life, because before operation, he was in a critical condition” –  Ass. Prof. Nguyen Huu Uoc said.

 

Moreover, his situation before transplantation was so serious: high risk due to long stay at hospital, his exhausted body (BMI = 14 – super stunted, while a normal rank of BMI should be from 18.5 to 24.9).

 

“With this stunted condition, even appendectomy is quite difficult to perform, thus major surgery as lung transplantation is even more serious” – Ass. Prof. Nguyen Huu Uoc said.

 

Beside that, transplantation from a brain dead donor (no plan) is not as well prepared as transplantation from a living donor (with plan).

Ass. Prof. Nguyen Huu Uoc also said, finally, in order to have the happy day of Duc and his family, it was 10 months with full of efforts from physician of VDUH. Almost all the most advanced treatment plan of intensive care: ECMO, micro filter… are used for him due to his stunted body.

 

Not only that, through in past 10 months, Duc experienced very difficult time “from live to die” that not only treatment plan but also caring difficult: nutrition did not work, body became stunted before transplantation without muscle and limited movement but his body needed more energy after transplantation for breathing.

 

However, coming over to the success are the determination of his family, tireless efforts of physicians, nurses who cared for Duc through many awake nights to keep watching Duc in 24/7.

 

“We can say that this lung transplantation went through many rare levels in medical field in the world”. The success after 10 months confirms the efforts of both medical professionals and ethnic of physicians” – Ass. Prof. Nguyen Huu Uoc emphasized.

 

As we know, Duc’s family is in an extreme difficult condition, thus during his long hospitalization, the physicians paid all efforts and called for many donations for his medication. That’s why, on the day that he is discharged from the hospital, his parent were moved and shared that his appearance on that day was a miracle for his self and family.

 

“On behalf of our family, we would extend our sincere thanks to all physicians, who brought him back, paid all efforts for treatment and caring for him. We also thank to all donors to support him for a lung transplantation and post-operation treatment” – Duc’s father said.

Thai Binh/Health and Life’s style