In Global News: A Heart Donor Meets the Woman Who Was Given Her Heart, CABG in the Maldives, and PTE in Lebanon

Friday, August 17, 2018

Submitted by

Claire Vernon

Source

Source Name: News from around the web.

Source URL: https://www.ctsnet.org/jans/global-news-heart-donor-meets-woman-who-was-given-he…

Author(s)

Claire Vernon

Patient Care and General Interest

A congenital heart surgeon in Boston, Massachusetts, was once a patient himself.

A team at the ADK hospital in the Maldives has performed the country’s first coronary artery bypass surgery.

A woman receiving a heart-lung transplant was also able to donate her heart, and she met the woman who received her heart at the Transplant Games of America.

The American University of Beirut Medical Center in Lebanon became the first in the country to perform a pulmonary thromboendarterectomy.

Drugs and Devices

Boston Scientific has announced progress toward new US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its Lotus Edge valve.

An investigational treatment for bronchiolitis obliterans, which can occur in patients who receive a lung transplant, has been granted Orphan Drug Designation by the US FDA.

Research, Trials, and Funding

An analysis of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Registry found diabetes to be a predictor of poor transplant-free survival in patients diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as adults.

Comments

Submitted by Amer Chaikhouni on Sat, 2018-08-18 09:34

Your article about Pulmonary thromboendarterectomy referred us to the AUBMC report: "AUBMC performs the first-of-its-kind Pulmonary Endarterectomy surgery in Lebanon and the region The new procedure gives hope to patients with severe Pulmonary Hypertension". This is certainly a good achievement that will help patients in this region. However, it was not a first-of-its-kind" because I performed three such operations previously, two in Aleppo, Syria in 2001 and 2003 and a third in Qatar in 2011. I performed the first of my such operations on Oct. 23rd, 2001 for treating an 11 year old boy with symptomatic chronic pulmonary thromboembolism totally occluding his right pulmonary artery. The second was on July 19th, 2003 for treating a 26 year old woman with chronic pulmonary thromboembolism totally occluding her left pulmonary artery. The third was on Jan. 6th, 2011 for treating a 24 year old man with chronic pulmonary thromboembolism totally occluding his left pulmonary artery. All such operations were performed on cardiopulmonary bypass. The third operation required 9 minutes of deep hypothermia and circulatory arrest. The patients survived these operations and had very good symptomatic improvement and decrease of pulmonary hypertension.