ISMETT: 4 Transplants Performed in 48 Hours

The Covid-19 emergency does not stop transplants. Over a period of 48 hours, two organ donations took place in the Civico di Ragusa and Papardo hospitals in Messina, which allowed ISMETT to perform 4 organ transplants: three lung and one combined liver-kidney.

6 April 2020 – It was thus possible to carry out three lung transplants in patients suffering from severe terminal respiratory failure. "The execution of three lung transplants in such a short time – underlines Dr. Alessandro Bertani, Head of the Division of Thoracic Surgery and Lung Transplantation of IRCCS-ISMETT – two of which are performed simultaneously, represents an extraordinary circumstance and an important signal for all patients waiting for a lung transplant in Sicily".

The combined liver and kidney transplant was performed last Thursday. "To be subjected to the delicate intervention – explains Prof. Salvatore Gruttadauria, Director of the Department for the Care and Study of Abdominal Pathologies and Abdominal Transplants – a young patient of 38 years, who was suffering from a rare metabolic disease: primitive hyperoxaluria".

In these weeks of great commitment of the health sector to face the COVID-19 epidemic, the activity of transplants has continued to be carried out to give patients with terminal organ failure the opportunity to be treated. ISMETT regularly performs organ transplantation and complex oncological surgery, ensuring patients a path of protection according to the guidelines issued by the National Transplant Center on the management of organ donors in the covid-19 pandemic.

The management of recipient patients is entrusted from the moment of reporting the potential donor to the multi-disciplinary team of surgeons, medical specialists and nursing coordinators who work in synergy with the Regional Transplant Center and the Network of Intensive Care that is proving – even in a moment of extreme emergency and with reduced staff – to be able to finalize the donation-transplant path also in Sicily.

"A special thanks – underlines the Health Department of ISMETT – also goes to the transfusion center that in such a difficult moment, in which blood donors are extremely small in number, manages, however, to guarantee the blood supplies necessary for transplants and particularly complex oncological surgeries".