A multi-speciality quaternary care hospital in Chennai announced that it had successfully performed a complex bilateral lung transplant on a one-year-old boy and is one of the world's youngest and India's youngest recipients to undergo bilateral lung transplantation.

A 30-member team under the leadership of Dr. K.R. Balakrishnan, Chairman- Cardiac Sciences and Director - Institute of the Heart and Lung Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support, MGM Healthcare successfully performed this procedure on the patient on August 24th 2021. Speaking about the patient Dr. Balakrishnan explained, "The patient was diagnosed with bronchopulmonary dysplasia and was put on the ventilator from birth as his oxygen saturation was extremely low. It was extremely challenging for us to transplant the lungs as there was a size mismatch between the donor and the recipient."

Dr. Suresh Rao K.G, Co-Director of Heart and Lung Transplantation Programme& Mechanical Circulatory Support, MGM Healthcare said, "As the child's lungs were not recovering, we did not have any other option other than bilateral lung transplantation. The child was fortunate to get a pair of lungs from a brain-dead pediatric patient. This is one of the youngest children on whom we have done a lung transplant. The child is stable in the ICU."

Dr. K.R. Balakrishnan further said, "It is a testimony to the sincerity and skill of our nurses in Chennai that this child is alive today. It is a Herculean task anywhere in the world to perform dual-lung transplant on such a small child without any complications."