Specialist doctors at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), Panjagutta, performed lung transplantation on a 19-year-old girl from Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh. The procedure was the first such to be done at a government health facility in Telangana.
Doctors said lung transplantation is rarely conducted at any government facility in the country. The organ was harvested from a 47-year-old woman from Secunderabad.
Transplantation costs ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore depending on the medical services a patient requires. The 19-year-old recipient did not have to pay money for the procedure at NIMS. It was funded — around ₹12 lakh — under Aarogyasri Health Scheme.
NIMS unit head at Cardiothoracic Surgery department, Amaresh Rao Malempati said patients who undergo lung transplantation may require extensive dialysis and ECMO support, bronchoscopy and secretions in lungs have to be cleared. They also need immunosuppressive medicines apart from constant monitoring of the condition to know if the body is rejecting the organ. All this makes up for ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore.
In this case, the girl, who suffered from a congenital lung condition, had been consulting doctors and was on oxygen support at home. However, when she started to feel breathless, she was admitted to NIMS around mid-September.
After finding suitable lungs, the transplantation was taken up. She will be under observation for two weeks or more, depending on her progress.
In-charge of Jeevandan, cadaver transplantation programme, G. Swarnalatha said around 50 more patients across the State are awaiting lung transplantation. Some of them would undergo the procedure at corporate hospitals.
Heart transplant patient
A 30-year-old man, who had undergone heart transplantation at NIMS on September this year, has been discharged and is in good health. The heart was harvested from a 34-year-old Telangana police constable who was declared brain-dead.
Prior to his case, the last transplant was performed at NIMS in 2018.
