Vietnam Completes 1st Multi-organ Transplant To Date

Vietnam’s doctors successfully had a multi-organ transplant operation on March 3, marking the first case of this kind so far. The operation which took 13 hours was carried out by a group of more than 150 medical staffs from the Military Medical Academy and Hospital 103. The recipient, a 43-year-old man, was transplanted with a kidney and pancreas donated by a person with brain dead in a fatal traffic accident. Hoang Manh An, director of Hospital 103, said that the success of the first human multi- organ transplantation has opened up new stage for Vietnamese medical sector. Vietnamese doctors were able to transplant since 1992. To date, about 102 medical stations meet standards of taking transplantations. The first heart transplant was made at the Military Medical Academy in 2010. So far, Vietnam has nearly 900 kidney transplants, 36 liver transplant and nine heart transplant cases. (Nhan Dan – The People March 4 p1, www.nld.com.vn March 3, www.xinhuanet.com March 3)