Polish hospital sets national record for heart transplants
PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska
15.01.2019 08:30
The Silesian Centre for Heart Diseases in Poland's southern city of Zabrze carried out 76 heart transplants in 2018, setting a national record.
Cardiac surgeons Professor Marian Zembala (R) and Doctor Michał Zembala (L) at a press conference held at the Silesian Centre for Heart Diseases in Zabrze. Photo: PAP/Andrzej Grygiel
The facility has joined a prestigious group of six hospitals in the world that transplant more than 75 hearts a year, Poland’s PAP news agency has reported.
Cardiac surgeon Michał Zembala, in charge of the hospital’s heart transplant programme, said that the number of transplants was growing thanks to progress in medicine.
Zembala told PAP: “We grant patients an extra 10 years of life and if the transplanted heart fails, we offer the possibility of a repeat transplant.”
In 2018, the hospital carried out its first total artificial heart (TAH) surgery in a patient waiting for a heart transplant. The patient is now in recovery and is soon expected to be released from hospital, PAP said.
Last year, the facility conducted 27 lung transplants, 80 percent more than in the previous year.
The Zabrze hospital is where Doctor Zbigniew Religa performed Poland's first heart transplant surgery in 1985.
(aba/gs)
Source: PAP
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