Toddler suffering from rare genetic disease undergoes successful heart transplant, making him the youngest ever such patient in Hong Kong
- Hui Chi-hoi, who is 20 months old, has restrictive cardiomyopathy, which leads to multiple organ failure and also claimed the life of his elder brother
- Surgery lasted 10 hours and was greatly complicated by the child’s young age and size, as he weighed only 9.5 kilograms
A 20-month-old toddler suffering from a rare genetic disease that claimed the life of his elder brother, has successfully undergone a “miracle” heart transplant, making him the youngest patient ever to receive such an operation in Hong Kong.
The 10-hour surgery which Hui Chi-hoi underwent last month at Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam, was considered the most challenging of its kind because of the patient’s young age. The boy weighed only 9.5 kilograms and had a heart smaller than an adult’s fist.
“It was the most complicated heart transplant procedure ever completed in the medical history of Hong Kong. There was a 30 to 40 per cent chance of failure, which could have resulted in Chi-hoi dying on the operating table,” said Dr Timmy Au Wing-kuk, the department of cardiothoracic surgery’s chief of service at the hospital, in a press conference on Friday.
Chi-hoi has restrictive cardiomyopathy, a rare genetic defect, which has led to multiple organ failure, including his heart, kidney, liver and lungs, as well as ischemic cerebral attacks, a condition where an artery in the brain is blocked. His brother, who also had the defect, died at the age of seven months in 2016.
Chinese toddler has surgery to remove 21 magnetic beads from his stomach
These medical conditions made the transplant and anaesthesia procedures more difficult as there was a lot of scar tissue surrounding Chi-hoi’s heart and major organs, while 70 per cent of the surface of his heart was covered or obstructed by four large cannulae, tubes from a heart pump used to maintain Chi-hoi’s heart functions.