Surgeons from Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital and USF Health, also based in Tampa, partnered to perform the world’s first recorded bloodless heart-liver transplant.
The procedure was led by Kiran Dhanireddy, MD, vice president and chief of the TGH Transplant Institute, and Gundars Katlaps, MD, surgical director of TGH’s lung transplant program, according to a July 7 news release from the hospital.
Bloodless transplants occur when patients are unable to receive blood products due to medical contraindications or religious beliefs, the release said. The first bloodless single-organ transplant was performed in 1986 and the first bloodless heart-kidney transplant was performed in March.
“The patients we see already face several obstacles throughout their care journeys, including delays or inequities in the organ allocation process and lack of access to specialized expertise where they live. A patient’s inability to receive blood products — whatever the reason — should not be one of them,” Dr. Katlaps said in the release.
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