Lung transplant programme, ECMO & thoracic surgery services launched at CMRI

Kolkata: Prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in West Bengal is quite high. According to recent statistics of West Bengal’s Health Directorate, about 43.4 lakh people are suffering from COPD and approximately 50,000 people die due to this disease.

Given this situation, Hyderabad-based Yashoda Hospitals and CMRI have taken the initiative to work together to provide heart and lung transplantation services, ECMO and thoracic surgeries. An MoU in this regard was signed between the two institutions.

“It lays the foundation of a big programme with lung transplantations care, advanced thoracic surgeries and ECMO management in eastern India. The patients not only from West Bengal, eastern India and north-east India but also from neighboring cities like Ranchi and Bhubaneswar are likely to benefit from transplants here,” said Dr Raja Dhar, Director and Head of Pulmonology Department at CK Birla Hospitals, CMRI, Kolkata.

Elaborating the understanding, Dr Simmardeep Singh Gill, CEO of CK Birla Hospitals, said “It is our endeavour to ensure quality care and best clinical outcome for all our patients. We at CMRI are well equipped with state of art technology and follow evidence based clinical practice. With this collaboration Yashoda Hospitals, would offer at CMRI training and consultations on advanced lung care. For patients this collaborative service would be pre-operative consultation, Lung transplant surgery and post-operative consultation and follow up from time to time”.

“Lung transplant is a complex surgical procedure to replace diseased or failing lung with a healthy lung, usually from cadaveric / brain dead suitable donor (based on blood type, size of organ, tissue match) depending on the medical condition like COPD,  pulmonology fibrosis (scarring of the lungs), cystic fibrosis, pulmonology arterial hypertension, where you notice decreasing oxygen levels in blood as these diseases progresses. It may involve replacing one or both of the lungs. After the surgery patient will have to spend a few days in the ICU, and after discharge from the hospital, there will be three months of frequent close monitoring by the lung transplantation team. This entire program will now be a combined effort with CK Birla and Yashoda Hospitals at Kolkata,”  said Dr Apar Jindal, Director, Advanced Lung Failure, Transplant Pulmonologist, Co-Director Lung Failure Unit – Yashoda Hospitals, Hyderabad.

Yashoda Hospitals Director Dr Pavan Gorukanti, who is also an American Board Pulmonary Critical Care Specialist, said, “Yashoda Hospitals is now doing about 5 to 10 transplants per month with best outcomes. During the COVID-19 first and second waves, we have catered to the largest number of critically ill patients in the country. More than 100 Air ambulance transfers from across the country was taken care and we also catered to the highest number of patients treated on ECMO care,”

Dr Shubham Sharma, Consultant Advanced Lung Failure and Transplant Pulmonologist of Yashoda Hospitals,  said, “All the necessary pre-investigations, diagnostics, preparation and selection of the right patient will be done with all the infra-structure available at CMRI, and currently the transplant will be done at Yashoda Hospitals, Hyderabad in association with CK Birla team registering the patient under Jeevandan Organ Donation program of Telangana. Once the team of CK Birla gears up the transplants will be done at Kolkata Unit with continued collaboration”

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