Italy: surgeons perform country’s first liver-heart transplant

Rome, Sep 30 (Latin Press) Italian surgeons successfully performed the country's first multi-organ liver-heart transplant at San Giovanni Battista hospital in the northern city of Turin, and one of the few in the world, a report said.

September 30, 2024
11:48

A report from that health unit, published Monday on the digital site of the daily Quotidiano Nazionale, said a multidisciplinary team of experts managed to maintain the normal connection between the heart and the liver, and transplanted the two organs together into a 38-year-old patient, who is recovering satisfactorily.

The procedure lasted 12 hours and was performed by a team of specialists led by renowned cardiac and liver surgeons, Giacomo Maraschioni and Damiano Patrono, respectively, who managed to perform the vascular connections at the same time.

The patient was kept alive thanks to extracorporeal circulation, until blood flow in the multi-organic block was restored, and both the heart and liver were functioning again immediately.

Giovanni La Valle, director of the University Complex City of Health and Science of Turin, which is part of the San Giovanni Battista health center, also known as Hospital Molinette, highlighted that the realization of this combined transplant meant a remarkable advance in the treatment of seriously ill patients.

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