The complicated eight hours surgery was performed using organs donated by a brain-dead patient, according to the director of the medical center, Duong Duc Hung, at a press conference held on Wednesday.

The new heart started beating almost immediately and within 36 hours the functions of both vital organs began to recover steadily, he underscored.

Duc Hung explained that the complex surgical intervention was performed on October 1, after the patient identified as D.V.H., who suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, suffered decompensated heart failure, while his renal function was severely compromised. Despite numerous challenges, because D.V.H. was too ill for such a complex procedure, doctors and experts decided to proceed with the dual transplant, to offer the patient a small but real hope of survival.

This is the first time in Vietnam that physicians have successfully performed a surgical intervention of this magnitude on a critically ill patient, Duc Hung stressed as cited by VNA news agency.

The first organ transplant in Vietnam was performed in 1993, and currently the country has about 25 centers specialized in this type of surgical interventions, in which over 8,000 operations have been performed.

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