A 21-year-old Ukrainian recently underwent a bilateral lung transplant for a rare condition at a city hospital.
Andrii Prokopchuk, who was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension at the age of seven that led to high lung blood pressure, was admitted to a hospital in Ukraine’s capital Kiev last year as his condition deteriorated.
Doctors there referred him to cardiac surgeon K.R. Balakrishnan at Fortis Malar Hospital, said his mother Tamara. Mr. Prokopchuk’s father had died of lung cancer. At Malar hospital, he underwent a battery of tests. Doctors realised that he might need a heart-lung transplant. In the six-minute walk test in which a normal person would cover over 500 m, Mr. Prokopchuk managed only 270 m. An ECHO also revealed that his right heart chambers were dilated. Since it was impossible to get both organs from the same person, doctors resolved to preserve his heart by improving its function. Then, information came of a 20-year-old lung donor from Visakhapatnam. Malar hospital was allotted the lungs, said K.G. Suresh Rao, head of critical care and cardiac anaesthesia at the hospital. Mr. Prokopchuk was put on an ECMO machine and doctors transplanted the right lung first and then, the left lung.
Dr. Balakrishnan said Mr. Prokopchuk was suffering from a disabling disease from which patients could die for want of treatment. “After the transplant, he has been doing very well,” he said.
Mr. Prokopchuk , an only child, said: “I have no health issues now. I don’t have breathlessness, blue lips or bluing fingertips. I can run and feel no pain in the chest.” Mr. Prokopchuk and Ms. Tamara will leave for Ukraine in 10 days.
