Doctors at Wuhan Union Medical Hospital successfully conducted heart and lung transplants Wednesday on a 23-year old man dying of Eisenmenger's Syndrome in Wuhan, in central China's Hubei Province.
Hospital sources say the patient, Li Bo, is in stable condition following the four-hour surgery, which was considered nearly impossible given the extremely high difficulty and risk of the operation.
Li suffered from congenital heart disease. With the disease worsening, his heart and lungs had virtually ceased functioning. The only way to save his life was through transplant surgery.
The difficulties of the operation lie in protecting the transplanted organs and guarding against rejection. It is especially hard to prevent the lungs from being contaminated by virus, which may be an important factor in the high mortality rate for such operations.
The surgery was the third of its kind in China. The longest post-surgery survival period for a patient having undergone the surgery in China was 80 days.
Globally, less than 60 percent of patients survive surgery, of which 37 percent live for five years.
(Xinhua News Agency June 26, 2003)
