Apollo Hospitals, one of Asia’s largest integrated health care groups, has once again used the feat to reiterate its position as the leading transplant centre in the world by performing the complex transplant on the young man from Tiruchengode, Tamilnadu.
The complex procedure is said not to have been attempted anywhere in Asia. This is the story of Mr. Ponnar R., a quiet-spoken young man hailing from Tiruchengode, a small town in Namakkal District, Tamilnadu in India. Ponnar was an exceptional student, who completed his Masters in Engineering and was a gold medallist.
At 22, in the prime of his life, with all his hopes and dreams ahead of him and the world at his feet, Ponnar started noticing swelling in his abdomen, shortness of breath and found that he was turning yellow. The ailment was diagnosed as cirrhosis of the liver, leading to liver failure and he was advised a liver transplant, which his family was ready to get done for the young man.
However, when he presented himself for liver transplant, it was discovered that Ponnar had a congenital condition called Ebsteins anomaly – a failure of the right side of the heart to develop properly, which was the cause of the liver failure. This unfortunate mix of problems left Mr Ponnar with no other option but a combined heart and liver transplant.
His family and especially his sister, who was a pillar of strength for him, decided not to leave no stone unturned to save the young man and brought him to Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, India. According to Dr. Paul Ramesh, Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai:
“With the heart not functioning in an efficient manner, there was high back pressure on the liver causing destruction of the liver cells leading to jaundice and cirrhosis. Additionally, the transplant team had to take into consideration the risk of excessive bleeding in the case of simultaneous transplant and the risk of accumulated toxins in the liver, attacking the heart, if the two organs were transplanted separately.
”Only a highly successful heart transplant team and a highly successful liver transplant team, both working together as one team could hope to accomplish an en-bloc transplantation – a very rare procedure anywhere in the world. “Over a decade of experience in solid organ transplants has enabled us with the skills and expertise needed to carry out a complex and demanding procedure like this.
Our successful heart transplants and liver transplants performed individually, gave us the foundation, strength and operational excellence to successfully complete Asia’s first en-bloc CHLT.
I am extremely proud of Ponnar and his family whose trust in the clinical team at Apollo gave us the inspiration to carry out this procedure and move the boundaries of clinical excellence a notch higher.” Commending the development, the Chairman and Founder of Apollo Hospitals, Dr Prathap C Reddy, said it was an outstanding achievement and a testament to the world-class abilities of the hospitals’ surgeons, physicians, technicians, nurses and other staff who were committed to serving patients and providing them with health care of international standards.
”The surgery is a result of days of meticulous planning by both our cardiac and liver transplant teams and showcases our strength in terms of infrastructure, and medical expertise. The collaborative efforts taken by both the transplant teams to analyse, strategize and orchestra the whole surgery is laudable,” he said.
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