A 29-year old Iraqi national successfully underwent a mechanical heart transplant at a Indian hospital after being diagnosed with severe left ventricular dysfunction, one of the most prominent reasons for sudden cardiac death.
Rabeea Majhool initially had a mild respiratory infection which aggravated and spread to his lung and heart and within a fortnight of contracting the disease, he was diagnosed with severe left ventricular dysfunction, said doctors.
Despite being told by the doctors that heart transplant is the only cure, Majhool faced severe difficulty in getting a cadaver donation due to its scarcity internationally. Even India's human organ transplant law allows a foreign patient to receive a cadaver organ only once the national list is exhausted.
However, help was at hand for Majhool. A team of doctors at the Gurgaon-based Fortis Memorial Research Institute(FMRI), in hours-long and complex surgery, implanted a "mechanical heart" in him.
"This is currently the most sophisticated technology and the only FDA approved technology available in the world and a permanent solution to heart failure. It acts as destination therapy for a patient who cannot find a heart donor or in patients where heart donation is not possible," said Sandeep Attawar, head of the cardio-thoracic vascular surgery unit at FMRI and one of the doctor who conducted the transplant.
"Unlike a normal heart transplant which requires intake of immuno-suppressants to facilitate organ acceptance, patients with mechanical heart need to take only one simple blood thinning medicine to ensure free flow of blood," he said.
