The surgery was performed by doctors of Central Military Hospital 108 on February 26.

Tran Ngoc Hanh, 54, resident of Nam Dinh province, has become the first Vietnamese patient, who has been transplanted with lungs donated by a brain-dead person. He has now been healthy for 16 days since the operation. He even participated in an online press conference from his special care room on March 16.

Lieutenant General Mai Hong Bang, Director of Central Military Hospital 108, told in the press conference that the patient was diagnosed with acute respiratory failures due to his full-blown chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He might have died without such a lung transplant.

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Lieutenant General Mai Hong Bang, Director of Central Military Hospital 108

In the life-or-death situation, leaders and experts of the hospital made a historic decision for the hospital in particular and Vietnam’s medicine in general. According to Mr. Bang, lung transplant has still remained a big challenge in Vietnam as the operation is very complex, requiring intensive and sophisticated techniques, relatively short time and close coordination between participating sections during the process from the organ donation to the transplantation.

To ensure the success in this historic lung transplant operation, the hospital had mobilized 60 surgeons and doctors with the support of leading foreign experts in resuscitation and lung transplantation and under the close instruction of the leaders of the hospital.

The successful lung transplant has become a record in the history of organ transplants in Vietnam and opened opportunities for patients with lung problems. This success has also made the hospital’s staff more confident in performing transplants of other organs and parts of the human body, such as hearts, lungs, limbs, sections of intestine and wombs.

Translated by Chung Anh