A patient with heart failure (left) at Cho Ray Hospital is in stable condition after undergoing heart transplantation surgery with a heart from a brain-dead donor. Photo courtesy of the hospital

Le Ngoc Thanh, chairman of the Association of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, said that minimally invasive heart surgery represented a real revolution in treatment of heart diseases in Vietnam.

Minimally invasive heart surgery is used to treat a variety of heart conditions and results in fewer complications, quicker recovery, less pain, and shorter hospital stays, Thanh, director of E Hospital in Hanoi, said at a conference held at Cho Ray Hospital in HCM City last Saturday.

Since 2013, more than 900 cases of minimally invasive heart surgery have been performed at the E Hospital.

A child weighing 13 kilogrammes was the youngest patient to undergo minimally invasive heart surgery at the hospital.

Recently, the hospital successfully performed 3D laparoscopic surgery, which helps reduce operative time and complications, according to Thanh.

“Heart transplantation from brain-dead donors is a breakthrough achievement of cardiac surgery in Vietnam,” he said.

Nguyen Thai An, head of Cho Ray Hospital’s department of cardiac surgery, said that heart failure was a huge burden on medical care, including lengthy hospital treatments and high medical costs.

Heart transplantation is one of the options for treating heart failure.

Since 2017, doctors at Cho Ray Hospital have successfully performed heart transplantation from brain-dead donors for four patients with heart failure in the advanced stage.

The heart transplantations were assisted by Hanoi’s Viet Duc Hospital. The four patients are in stable condition.

According to Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son Vietnam is among the countries with the highest heart disease-related deaths in the world.

Cardiovascular diseases are a leading cause of death globally, claiming 18 million lives a year, according to Son. VNS

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