Heart transplant is the surgical replacement of the diseased or failing heart with a healthy heart from a donor. It is the best option for patients who have unsuccessfully tried all other treatment modalities including medications, heart surgeries, devices etc. for their heart disorder.
Let’s first understand little bit about heart and its functioning before moving to heart transplant.
Human heart is a muscular organ that is located a little left in the mid of the chest. It is about a fist in size and is responsible for uninterrupted supply of oxygen and nutrients to various body parts through blood. It is a pumping organ with two halves; right and left and four chambers (2 atria and 2 ventricles). The blood from body is received by right side of the heart and pumped to the lungs while the left side of the heart receives blood from lungs and supplies it to the body.
The heart is a pumping organ that supplies oxygen and nutrients to various body organs through blood. A transplant is required in patients whose hearts become unable to pump blood efficiently. A transplant may also be required if the “electrical conduction system” of the heart could not work properly. This electrical system is very important as it determines the rhythm, rate, and sequence of contraction of the heart muscle.
Most of the people suffering from heart failure are candidates of heart transplant. Heart transplants is indicated when all other treatment for heart problem fail to give relief to the patient. There are a variety of heart disorders that can lead to heart failure and require a heart transplant, like:
Heart transplant is a major procedure that is done by a team of expert surgeons and doctors. The heart donors are very less as compared to other organ donors as only a deceased person who died because of some accident or was brain dead and kept alive on machines, can donate heart. So, the donor heart can come only from a deceased donor who was healthy and disease free before death. This may take several months to wait for the right donor who is compatible with the recipient.
Once the patient decides to undergo heart transplant, various tests are done before transplant to ensure the safety of the operation and find out the eligibility of the patient for the transplant. Some of the major tests done are:
After these tests confirm the eligibility status of the patient, next step is to evaluate both patient and donor for compatibility. This requires following tests:
These tests are required to match a donor heart to the recipient and transplant is planned only after confirming the match.
The heart transplant is a complicated procedure that is done under general anesthesia and may take 4 to 10 hours. The transplant procedure consists of three operations.
Within no time, the heart warms up and begins beating. Before removing the patient from heart-lung machine, the surgeon checks all the connected blood vessels and heart chambers for leakage or any other abnormality.
A successful heart transplant is defined by increase in the blood count levels or control of disease/cancer. In most of the cases, transplant can increase the survival of the patient. It can partially or in some cases completely cure the illness of the patient. Within one year after transplant, patient can resume all the major daily activities and feels far better than before.
For treatment of epilepsy that does not respond to/ineffective to medications, a brain surgery may be done to control seizures. Surgical procedure may be performed to remove the area of the brain that produces seizures, to interrupt the seizure impulses along the nerve pathway or to implant a neuro stimulator device.
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