Record operation in Garrahan: 100 doctors perform 3 simultaneous transplants

With a great logistical deployment and the articulation of different support areas in addition to the equipment in the operating room, the Garrahan carried out three interventions of the highest pediatric complexity.

The group of WhatsApp Liver Transplant was activated on Saturday at 4:58 p.m.: Probable operation for a 12-month-old patient with biliary atresia, the first message said.

Communication extended at the same time between cardiovascular and pulmonary surgeons, anesthetists and instrument technicians. The multiorgan donation, coming from a public hospital in Junín, would allow the Garrahan Hospital transplant three patients simultaneously.

After an operation that included plane and ambulance trips, and required the presence of a team of almost 100 people, in addition to support teams, the hospital carried out three interventions that allowed the implementation a heart to a 4-year-old child, the liver to a 1-year-old baby and the lung to a 13-year-old teenager.

“First of all, thank and value the solidarity of a family that, faced with a tragic event such as the death of a loved one, transcends the act of donating the organs and decides to help other children or adolescents,” highlighted the president of the Board of Directors of Garrahan Hospital, Gabriela Bauerand added “secondly, recognize the dedication, effort and attitude of the wonderful people at the hospital who immediately come together as a team to make this result possible.”

They highlight a law that promotes organ donation

Bauer He also valued “the importance of the Law that promotes organ donation and the procurement task promoted by the INCUCAI as a key organization for all this to occur.”

“This is not the first time that the Hospital has carried out a triple intervention simultaneously and that speaks of continuity and represents pride for our institution and a true milestone for pediatric public health of which we are part and work to sustain and improve all the days,” he said Patricia Garcia Arrigoniexecutive medical director.

As always when a transplant operation begins, the most important thing is to ensure the logistics so that, like a clockwork mechanism, everyone takes their place at the appointed time. To this usual complexity, in this case, was added the volume of the teams of professionals and technicians due to the simultaneity of transplants that allowed multi-organ donation.

From the ablation of the organs until their implantation, the cold ischemia time for a heart or lung is four hours, while for the liver this time can extend between 24 and 36 hours. The fact that the donor came, in this case, from a hospital in the Buenos Aires town of Junín required that a team from the Garrahan He will travel there by plane to perform the ablation to return immediately and transplant the three previously prepared patients.

“Having the availability to bring together all this personnel, which is very important, in different teams, do it simultaneously in three operating rooms and have almost 100 people on a weekend when the majority must leave their commitments, family, birthdays, to respond to the call, it is something that we are proud of and value as a team,” said the head of Cardiovascular Surgery, Heart Transplantation and Peripheral Vascular Surgery, Pablo García Delucis.

For the heart transplant, which took 4 hours and 50 minutes, a larger heart was used because the recipient patient had pulmonary hypertension, something that was evaluated together with the head of the clinical area of ​​the service, Dr. Dora Haag. The intervention did not differ from a usual practice for the team, although there were professionals from this area collaborating in the two-lung transplant that required the use of extracorporeal inflation pumps and lasted six hours.