One of Asia’s youngest recipient undergoes bilateral lung transplant at MGM Healthcare Chennai

Mumbai: MGM Healthcare, a multi-specialty quaternary care hospital in the heart of the Chennai, today announced that it had successfully performed a complex bi-lateral lung transplant on Master. Nazar Dianov a 4-year old boy from Russia and is now one of Asia’s youngest recipients to undergo this procedure.

A 20-member team under the leadership of Dr. K.R. Balakrishnan Chairman & Director of Cardiac Sciences and Director of the Heart and Lung Transplant Program, MGM Health-care successfully conducted this procedure on the patient on December 15, 2020.

Speaking about the patient, Dr. Balakrishnan explained, “Master Nazar Dianov, a 4-year old boy from Russia was diagnosed with fibrosing alveolitis at the tender age of 2 months and was put on ventilator as his oxygen saturation was extremely low. He then underwent tracheostomy at the age of 6 months in Russia and was airlifted to our unit in Chennai in 2018 for further management and a possible lung transplant referred by the doctors in Russia.

Dr. Suresh Rao K.G, Co-Director of Heart and Lung Transplantation Programme & Mechanical Circulatory Support, MGM Healthcare said, “He was kept on ventilator for 3 years in Chennai as we tried to find a suitable donor organ for him. A 2-year old brain dead donor be-came available in December 2020 in Surat, Gujarat and the organ was airlifted. Master Nazar underwent bilateral lung transplantation at our hospital in December 2020. We kept him under observation in ICU care and are happy to report that the newly transplanted lungs are responding well in the patient. This is one of the longest duration for a small child to be kept on ventilator before undergoing a successful transplant in the world and is the youngest lung transplant in India and one of the youngest in Asia.

Dr. K.R. Balakrishnan 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 keep such a small child on ventilator for 3 years without any complications. Interestingly, the nurses have learnt to speak a few words of Russian and the boy understands common words in Tamil.

Speaking on their experience, Master Nazar’s parents said, “We would like to thank the clinical team led by Dr. Balakrishnan and Dr Suresh Rao at MGM Healthcare for giving our son a fresh lease of life. We would like to extend our gratitude to the nursing team for their diligent service during these testing times for us and to Trastan and NOTTO and the donor family for this extremely generous gift.”

The hospital further said that the child is currently off the ventilator and on minimal oxygen support. He is recovering well and undergoing physiotherapy and rehabilitation and will be able to lead a normal life in the future.