Viet Duc Hospital announced the country’s first successful simultaneous lung and heart transplant, performed on a patient with multiple organ failure on August 13.
The patient, Tran Nhu Q, was in critical condition due to severe multiple organ failure, with her risk of death increasing daily. She was reliant on medication to sustain her life.
The 38-year-old woman was diagnosed with Eisenmenger syndrome, irreversible right ventricular failure and severe tricuspid regurgitation, resulting from an atrial septal defect that had been treated in 2011.
"The patient was indicated for a simultaneous heart and lung transplant, although there was not enough time to treat malnutrition and the donor's lungs were infected with Acinetor baummani bacteria and were larger than the recipient's chest," said Director of Viet Duc University Hospital Dr Duong Duc Hung.
Three weeks before receiving the organs from the 34-year-old brain-dead donor, doctors decided to perform a simultaneous heart and lung transplant on the woman.
The surgery lasted seven hours with the support of an extracorporeal circulation machine. The surgical team reduced the size of both lungs to match and connected the two main bronchi instead of the traditional trachea to ensure better blood flow to the anastomosis.
The biggest challenge after surgery was balancing immunosuppressants. The patient needed high doses to avoid rejection, but this increased the risk of infection from multidrug-resistant bacteria in the donor lung. Doctors used nearly 40 drugs, combined with ultrafiltration, to treat kidney failure and titrated antibiotics to protect kidney function.
The patient was given intravenous and enteral nutrition, lung hygiene by tracheostomy, endoscopic sputum suction and rehabilitation exercises. Currently, the patient's heart and lung function have recovered well and continue to be closely monitored.
Deputy Head of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Viet Duc University Hospital, Associate Professor, Dr Pham Huu Lu said that heart-lung transplantation is an advanced medical technique in which the patient's heart and lungs are simultaneously replaced with a healthy heart and lungs from a suitable donor. This is the last resort treatment for patients with both end-stage heart and lung disease, when all other treatments have failed.
Dr Hung said that the success of the simultaneous heart-lung transplant has opened an important milestone, affirming the great progress of Viet Duc University Hospital in the field of multiple organ transplantation, at the same time setting a milestone for Vietnamese medicine on the world map as well as opening up many opportunities to save lives and new treatment directions for patients with end-stage heart and lung disease.
Director of the Medical Services Administration (MSA), Ministry of Health, Dr Ha Anh Duc congratulated the success of the medical team of Viet Duc University Hospital, the patient and their families.
“This multi-organ transplant from a brain-dead donor marks a remarkable development, affirming that Vietnam has completely mastered the most difficult organ transplant techniques. This is outstanding progress made by the Vietnamese medical industry in the field of organ transplantation,” said Dr Duc.
The MSA director also said that the health ministry will work with experts to evaluate the heart-lung transplant process and provide specific instructions nationwide. At the same time, in May 2026, the Ministry of Health will submit to the National Assembly proposals aimed at further developing the field of organ transplantation in the coming period.
This year is a breakthrough year for the VietDuc University Hospital in multi-organ transplantation. Since launching the programme in 2010 with an average of eight to 10 brain-dead donations each year, the hospital has recorded 25 brain-dead donations this year.
As of August 12, the total number of organ transplants from living and brain-dead donors at Viet Duc University Hospital reached 2,478 cases, including heart, lung, liver and kidney transplants./.
