Amid the raging war and constant threat of Russian missiles, a successful heart transplant has been performed on a 6-year-old girl in Kyiv, authorities with the Heart Institute of Ukraine’s Ministry of Health announced on Monday.
The three-hour operation, which took place on Sunday evening, gave the girl the heart of a 4-year-old boy, whom doctors had declared brain dead after suffering an aneurysm.
It was the first time a heart transplant had been performed in Ukraine on children so young, the institute said.
“The operation was also unique in that both the donor and the recipient were very young children, and the transplant required more effort from the doctors,” it added.
The transplant was performed by a team of doctors led by Dr. Boris Todurov, the chief scientist of the department of surgical and minimally invasive treatment.
“The operation went smoothly, the girl was extubated two hours after the operation,” Todurov said in a post on his official Facebook page.
