A cadaver heart has to be transplanted into the needy patient within four hours after it is harvested. The heart is rushed from one place to another or flown from one city to another, sometimes by a chartered aircraft, with the police creating a green channel for the vehicle transporting the heart. However, a new device in use in the advanced countries for the last one year can keep the heart in shape for 10 hours and provides sufficient time for transport. Ex-Vyvo perfusion system is like a box like apparatus which keeps the heart ticking as it provides blood circulation to the heart, noted heart transplant surgeon A.G.K. Gokhale said. Hearts are being transported to the neighbouring countries also thanks to his device.
But this is an expensive system costing Rs. 2 crore to Rs. 3 crore and yet to reach India. If it is available in India hearts can be transported to or brought from neighbouring countries also apart from far off places in the country. This will also avoid the need to have a green channel.
Dr. Gokhale, who is in the city to deliver an oration at the State conference of Association of Surgeons of India, also informed during a chat with The Hindu that technology concerned with transplantation surgery has improve during the last two decades.
The ventricular assist device, is a pump that assists the heart in pumping blood. Heart must have the capacity to pump out 70 per cent of the blood it receives and if the muscle that pumps the blood becomes weak problems like blood pressure, etc. crop up. Then the pumping of blood to the correct level has to be done and this is done by the ventricular assist device, which is worn externally.
Each device costs Rs. 80 lakh to Rs. 90 lakh and only 15 to 20 are in use in India. This device would be helpful for the patients who are not fit for transplantation. Patient who needs transplantation can be managed with this device till the time a donor heart is available to him or her. This is also called bridge to transplantation.
“If the machine is available for Rs. 15 lakh to Rs. 20 lakh it can be used instead of going for a transplantation”, Dr. Gokhale feels.
