Indian man gets two beating hearts after surgery

Dubai - It was after opening up the patient's chest that the doctors realised they would have to switch to 'plan B'.

An Indian man suffering from heart failure went into the operation theatre for a heart replacement, but came out with two beating hearts after doctors decided to place a donor heart inside his chest without removing the previous heart.

The rare surgery took place in Apollo Hospital in Hyderabad this Saturday when a 56-year-old man was taken inside the operation room after a donor heart belonging to a 17-year-old was identified.

The mandate for the doctors was to carry out a heart replacement, but that's when the cardio-thoracic surgeon, Dr. A. Gopala Krishna Gokhale, knew it would not be easy, a report in The Hindu said.

"The donor heart was of normal fist-size. The recipient's heart was the size of a small football," the report said, quoting the surgeon, explaining that the donor's heart was too small for the recipient.

This had caused the patient's lung blood pressure had shot up four times above normal level while the aortic systole pressure had gone down.

The doctors then worked on 'plan B' -- to place the donor's heart alongside the patient's heart.

The procedure, referred to as "Piggyback Heart Transplant", does not require removal of the deceased heart. Only about 150 such procedures have ever been reported, according to Dr. Gokhale.

Doctors cut away some part of the patient heart's pericardium, to facilitate placing the new heart. The donor's heart was finally squeezed between the right lung and the original heart in a procedure that lasted seven hours.

• India