Ahmedabad: A 15-year-old from Junagadh has become the youngest heart recipient in Gujarat after successfully undergoing heart transplant surgery, the CIMS hospital in Ahmedabad, where the surgery was performed, said. This was the 18th heart transplant at the hospital.
The transplanted heart belonged to Surat resident Dharmik Kakadiya, 14, whose family donated his heart and other vital organs after he was declared brain dead.
The heart recipient Mohit studies in class 11 in Junagadh. For the past two years, he was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body. He waited for nine months for a heart transplant and underwent the surgery at CIMS hospital on October 30.
“Mohit is the youngest patient in Gujarat to receive a heart transplant and is stable at present. It is always difficult to get the right match heart for a paediatric patient, as the size of the body and heart has to match. Luckily, Mohit was able to get an exact match heart,” Dr. Dhiren Shah, Director and Chief of cardiothoracic and heart transplant department at CIMS, said in a statement.
Mohit belongs to a poor family, and funds for the operation were raised via crowdfunding in association with the hospital.
The heart transplant procedure was completed in three hours and 45 minutes, which included one-and-a-half hours to transport the heart from Surat to Ahmedabad via a chartered flight.
“All preparations were over even as the heart was on its way to Ahmedabad, which allowed us to complete the transplant procedure in just two over hours after the heart reached the hospital,” said Dr. Dhaval Naik, cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon at CIMS hospital.