At one point, 67-year-old C.V Hanif was mostly confined to his home, entirely dependent on an oxygen cylinder and unable to completely take care of himself without help.

Today, however, nearly five months after a heart and double lung transplant, the patient from Kerala is on the road to recovery and back on his feet with no special oxygen support.

Mr. Hanif is the oldest recipient of such a procedure in the country, claimed doctors at Apollo Hospitals, where the surgery was performed in March this year.

“The patient came to us with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a condition in which an inflammation leads to the formation of scar tissue in the alveoli capillary membrane, in the gas-exchanging region of the lungs. This leads to very little exchange of gases and, therefore, lowered levels of oxygen the blood. At the end point, when there is end-stage lung and heart failure, there is no option but a transplant,” said Paul Ramesh, senior consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at the hospital.

Though Mr. Hanif was on the transplant list, he was admitted late one March evening with extreme breathlessness and low blood pressure.

“The procedure for someone as old as him is risky. But Mr. Hanif made it clear that he didn’t mind going ahead if there was a chance his quality of life would improve,” Dr. Ramesh said.

Thanks to a matching donor being available in 12 hours and the organs being transported quickly, the heart and double lung transplant was performed successfully by a team that included Dr. Ramesh, T. Sunder and Madhan Kumar, the last two being senior consultant cardiothoracic surgeons at the hospital.

Despite an infection contracted a few weeks later, Mr. Hanif made a complete recovery, Dr. Ramesh said. “This is a technically demanding and very complex. In Chennai, there have only been four performed so far,” he added.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / Staff Reporter / Chennai – August 10th, 2014