Vietnam’s Youngest Heart Transplant Patient Discharged from Hospital

A seven-year-old boy, who became the youngest heart transplant in Vietnam on February 1, was discharged from Hanoi-based Viet Duc University Hospital on March 3, local media reported. A month after the surgery, his condition has stabilized and he could walk and play normally, local doctors said. The boy suffered from cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that makes it hard for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body, and was at the final stage of heart failure. The condition forced him to take in high doses of cardiotonic drug regularly. It left him weak and thin, weighing just 16 kilos (35 pounds). Doctors diagnosed that a heart transplant was the only way to save him. Fortunately, the family of a young man, who was brain dead after a traffic accident, made the call to donate his heart. This is the fifth heart transplant performed on a child at the hospital. Doctors at Viet Duc University Hospital has performed five lung, 36 heart, 92 liver, and nearly 1,100 kidney transplants in total so far. (Bao Chinh Phu, cmsbhq.Hai Quan, VnExpress, en.Vietnam Plus)