A 26-year-old IT professional from Bangalore, suffering from a rare cancerous tumour, underwent a heart transplant at a city hospital.
The patient suffered from a condition called a recurrent synovial sarcoma of the heart. Specialists at Frontier Lifeline Hospital, where the transplant took place, said only 28 cases of intra-cardiac synovial cell sarcoma had been reported across the world, so far.
Surgery is possible only in 15 per cent of patients with the condition. The patient underwent a surgery 20 months ago at a hospital in Bangalore, followed by cyberknife radiotherapy and six cycles of chemotherapy.
After remaining stable for a year, the tumour began doubling in size. Since he had received ‘a lifetime’s dose of chemo and radiotherapy,’ the only option was a heart transplant.
Cardiac surgeon K.M. Cherian who operated on him said the patient would be on immuno-suppression drugs for life and would be monitored through PET scans for ‘recurrence of the cardiac tumour or distant metastasis.’
