Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Damascus, SANA- Syrian expatriate doctor, Ismail Al-Khatib, has succeeded to perform the first heart transplant surgery, along with a specialized medical team, taken from a dead person to a patient on an external pump at the Mayo Clinic in Florida, USA, adding a new achievement to his global medical record.
Five minutes was sufficient to place the operation between success and lack thereof, according to the doctor who described the operation to SANA as a race against time that require high skills and speed because any mistake could damage the heart.
He added that after the announcement of death by any specialist doctor, the law forces doctors to wait For five minutes to start the operation, “then we only have three minutes to preserve the heart, and this includes two minutes to open the chest and right atrium catheter, take one and a half liter of donor blood to run the external pump and one minute for aortic catheterization and injection of preservatives.”
This operation is considered as unique and rare in the world, as Dr. Al-Khatib describes.
Manar Salameh/ Mazen Eyon
