National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) yesterday said that it has carried out a heart transplant on a woman whose heart had stopped beating 50 days before, marking a new record in the nation.
The 38-year-old woman surnamed Chen (陳) was in October last year stung by a bee while visiting Japan and she developed an acute fever and heart failure that led to cardiac arrest shortly after she returned to Taiwan.
The hospital immediately applied extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and waited for a suitable donor heart for transplant, as four available donor hearts were incompatible.
Photo: CNA
NTUH Cardiovascular Center director Chen Yih-sharng (陳益祥) yesterday said that the woman had acute myocarditis caused by an allergic reaction to the bee sting and her heart was barely beating when she was hospitalized.
After a cardiac ultrasound showed that her heart was hardly functioning, two ECMO systems were used to keep her alive while waiting for a transplant, he said.
She had complications — including acute kidney failure and small blood vessel blockage due to blood clots — during the wait, so the surgical team had to come up with a desensitization plan to remove harmful antibodies from her blood to reduce the risk of her body rejecting a transplant, he added.
“We had to use immunological methods to desensitize her body to reduce the risk of transplant rejection, but it was not totally without danger, because the use of immunosuppressive agents might lead to infections,” Chen Yih-sharng said.
A transplant was finally completed in December last year and the new heart has been functioning properly over the past six months, he said.
The woman could have had a stroke at any time during the waiting period and the surgical team had growing concerns that she would remain in a vegetative state even after the transplant, Chen Yih-sharng said, but added that she still demonstrated slight reactions, a computed tomography scan showed no cranial bleeding and her family was very supportive.
The woman yesterday said that at the time, she could hear sounds around her, but could not move her body.
Noting that at the time she needed transfusions of up to 3 liters of blood per day, she expressed gratitude to all involved in saving her life.
The woman’s husband, surnamed Chin (秦), said that at first, after being informed of the situation in the intensive care unit, he could not accept that his wife’s heart had stopped beating.
However, because he did not want to give up hope, he said that he visited and talked to her several times a day while she waited for a donor heart.
The average waiting period for a heart transplant at NTHU is about 40 days, Chen Yih-sharng said.
Family support was also very important, because it allowed the surgical team to put all their efforts into saving the woman, he added.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS