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Kolkata: Patients from Bengal requiring lung transplant surgeries will now have access to better facilities with CMRI entering into a tie-up with Hyderabad-based Yashoda Hospitals on Tuesday.
Currently, only two hospitals in the city — IPGMER and Medica Superspecialty Hospital — have the licence to conduct lung transplant surgeries. CMRI will apply for licence once its medical team gets sufficient exposure at the Hyderabad hospital that has conducted more than 30 lung transplants in just one year of its transplant programme.
The two hospitals on Tuesday signed an MoU to launch the lung-transplant programme along with ECMO and thoracic surgery services.
“We are seeing lung damage in many patients in the wake of the Covid outbreak. About half of the 30 plus patients who underwent transplant at our facility suffered lung damage by Covid,” said pulmonologist Pavan Gorukanti, director of Yashoda Hospitals.
Lung transplant debuted in Bengal in September 2021 amidst the pandemic when an IT professional underwent the procedure at Medica Superspecialty Hospital. The man had been on ECMO support for 106 days due to acute lung damage triggered by Covid-19 infection. This one has been the lone lung transplant in the city. Even as the state-run IPGMER is the first to get a lung transplant licence in Bengal, the hospital is yet to conduct one.
“Two of the eight patients whom we referred to Yashoda Hospital for lung transplant had severe lung damage after Covid-19 infection. We will start with hand-holding from their team in this endeavour,” said pulmonologist Raja Dhar, director at the department of pulmonology at CMRI.
CK Birla Hospitals CEO Simmardeep Gill said this tie-up will benefit patients from Bengal immensely. “Our medical team will get training and consultation under collaboration. In about a year, we should be able to conduct lung transplant surgeries on our own,” said Gill.
According to pulmonologist Apar Jindal, lung transplant is a more complex procedure than transplanting heart, liver or the kidney. “But patients with advanced lung failure can look forward to a new life with about 85% success rate in transplant surgeries,” said Jindal. Doctors Shubham Sharma from the Hyderabad facility and Shyam Krishnan from CMRI will drive the programme at the Alipore hospital.\
