Heart Transplantation
When heart disease is advanced, patients no longer improve with only medications. This is called heart failure. Heart becomes weak. Patient will be breathless after a few steps or even at rest. They require frequent hospital admissions. This may be due to decreased blood supply to heart (coronary artery disease) or advanced valve problems. Then the only solution to such patients is Heart Transplantation– wherein the weak heart is removed and replaced by a healthy heart from a brain dead donor. 10 yr survival is more than 70%. There are people who are living for more than 25 years after transplantation.
Lung Transplantation
Some times lungs get affected with diseases like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD– related to smoking, bronchial asthma, air pollution etc.), interstitial fibrosis and primary pulmonary hypertension. This results in the failure of lungs to allow transportation of gases–oxygen and carbondioxide through it. With this patient goes into respiratory failure –becomes breathless and often requires oxygen even at rest. Such people will not live long and their quality of life is poor. In such cases, one or two lungs can be replaced by good lungs from a brain dead donor. 10yr survival after lung transplantation is around 40%. They need to take immunosuppressant drugs life long.
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Know Your Heart
