May 27, 2023 - In the first six months of this year, a total of 54 solid organs were transplanted at KBC Zagreb, including 20 kidneys, 17 livers, 15 hearts and two lung transplants, it was pointed out today at a press conference on the National Day of Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplants. Their patients included two children, said the head of the Urology Clinic of KBC Zagreb, Željko Kaštelan.

He pointed out that they are particularly proud of the success of the transplant teams that were present at the beginning of the year during a lung transplant in a child, as well as a simultaneous heart and liver transplant, writes Index.

"With ten transplants per million inhabitants, Croatia is the leader in Europe"

Assistant director of KBC Zagreb Milivoj Novak said that the number of transplants in KBC Zagreb is moving forward. Four years ago, in 2019, 99 transplants were performed, in 2021 there were 88, and last year 106.

The head of the Clinic for Diseases of the Heart and Blood Vessels, Davor Miličić, reminded that this year is the 35^th anniversary since the first heart transplant in Croatia, and since then the program has been running continuously. This year, 15 heart transplants were performed, and a kind of record, he says, was December last year and January this year with 12 heart transplants.

"Croatia, with ten transplants per million inhabitants, is the first in Europe," Miličić emphasized, comparing it to Great Britain, where there are 2.4 transplants per million inhabitants, and Spain and France with five to six per million inhabitants.

About a hundred people were involved in heart and liver transplantation at the same time

At the conference, it was pointed out that simultaneous liver and heart surgery on the same patient is a rare undertaking on a global scale, which was very demanding because immediately after the heart transplant, the liver transplant was performed. This can lead to problems even with a healthy heart, and the risk is even greater with a newly implanted heart, but it all went well without major complications.

Head of the Department for Coordination of Transplantation and Explantation, Jasna Brezak, said that the operation was organizationally demanding because the organs were obtained from two different donors from Eurotransplant.

"Everything had to be coordinated, and about a hundred people were involved in the entire process," she stated. Brezak emphasized that the transplantation system is well organized, it is a system of high knowledge and empathy, enthusiasm of all who participate in it.

"The fact that Croatia is at the top in the world in the donor and transplantation program shows that our medicine is completely at an enviable level," concluded the Head of the Department for Coordination of Transplantation and Explantation.

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