Heart transplants in India increase 10-fold since 2016

NEWDELHI: Improved coordination between donation, retrieval and transplantation centres has led to a 10-fold increase in heart transplantations in India since 2016.

There have been nearly 300 heart transplantations across India in two years, according to data provided by the National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (NOTTO), compared to about 350 between 2015 and 1994, when the first heart transplantation was done in India. NOTTO is located within Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital.

“This means there has been a tenfold increase in the number of heart transplants in the last two years. Although we have seen a spike in the number of heart transplants, transplant and retrieval of other organs like liver and kidneys has also gone up,” said Dr Vimal Bhandari, director of NOTTO.

“However, if we look at the need, this is just a drop. Every centre in India that does heart transplant has a waiting list of 10 or 20 at any given time. An estimated 50,000 hearts are needed for transplants,” said Dr Naresh Trehan, chairman and managing director Medanta:the Medicity.

Established in 2014, NOTTO has worked towards creating awareness about organ donation and training medical staff in performing retrieval and transplant.

“We have conducted four rounds of retrieval training in areas where organ retrieval is not happening. We aim to make all district hospitals retrieval centres,” said Dr Bhandari.

The number of centres has also gone up. “Today, there are 78 centres in India that do heart transplants. Of these, 44 came up in the last three years,” said Dr Aarti Vij, head, Organ Retrieval and Banking Organisation, AIIMS.

“Earlier, transplants were only happening in metro cities. But now, even tier two cities like Indore, Jaipur, Aurangabad have emerged as transplantation hubs,” said Dr Bhandari.

In the last two years, allocation of more than 200 organs happened at the national level.

“This means that a match could not be found at the state or regional level. Earlier, these organs would have been wasted because there was no national network,” he said.

“Apart from the coordination by NOTTO, increasing awareness is also a reason for the increase,” noted Dr Trehan.

“People in North India refuse donations many a times because of the religious belief. If you look at the data, most of the transplants happen in south India. However, now people are becoming aware that a brain dead patient can save the life of several sick people,” he said.