Simultaneous heart and liver transplant. For the first time at Molinette Hospital in Turin

The very delicate intervention, for the first time in Italy, Was performed at the Molinette hospital of the City of Health of Turin where the multidisciplinary transplant team of Turin managed to transplant the two organs as if they were one, maintaining the connection of the the heart liver.

The operation lasted 12 hours and to receive it was a 38 year old Roman woman suffering from a serious malformative heart disease that, over time, It had also caused serious damage to her liver.

The patient, who underwent a heart-liver multi-organ transplant, had already undergone heart surgery several times and, due to the severity of her condition, had been included in the national list for urgent transplants, which made it possible to find a suitable donor for both organs in a short time.

How the heart/liver transplant went

A transplant of this type allows to minimize the time of ischemic suffering of the organs before being transplanted, thus offering a better recovery of their function immediately after the transplant.

In addition to the intervention, the following were involved:team responsible for heart sampling and that liver sampling worker, several highly qualified specialists, such as heart surgeons and liver surgeons.

The woman was initially kept alive by a heart-lung machine., but as soon as the organs arrived in the operating room, the transplant was performed by cardiac surgeons and hepatosurgeons who simultaneously performed the vascular connections.

Once circulation was restored in the multi-organ block, both the heart and liver immediately resumed functioning.. The success of the operation required perfect collaboration and synchronization of the various specialists involved.

This operation was a real marathon, because, while the heart collection team and the liver collection team worked side by side at the donor's site in nearby Lombardy, in Turin another double team, again made up of heart surgeons and liver surgeons, prepared the patient to receive the heart-liver block.

The patient is currently breathing on her own, but is still hospitalized in the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit for continued treatment, awaiting transfer to the hospitalization ward.

This innovative transplant confirms the international excellence of the Molinette Hospital of the City of Health of Turin which, thanks to the consolidated collaboration and coordination of the various organ transplant programs active in the hospital company, has made it possible to reach this new and important goal for an increasingly effective treatment of seriously ill patients.

All this, always thanks to the donation of organs and blood, necessary to perform these extraordinary interventions.