VIETNAM: Seven Organ Transplants In Three Days Include First Lung Transplant In Southern Vietnam

Seven Organ Transplants In Three Days Culminate In First lung transplant In South Vietnam
Nov 13, 2025 — by Transplant News

WORLD NEWS – VIETNAM: Over a three‑day span from November 7 to 9, 2025, Chợ Rẫy Hospital led a concentrated series of transplant operations that together produced seven successful grafts and inaugurated the first lung transplant ever performed in southern Vietnam. Phạm Thanh Việt, the hospital’s deputy director in charge of operations, described sustained round‑the‑clock effort by hundreds of health workers and close coordination with the national organ coordination center, aviation police and hospitals across the country to execute the complex logistics.

The sequence began when a 49‑year‑old man in Ho Chi Minh City died of traumatic brain injury and his family authorized donation of heart, lungs, two kidneys and two corneas. Surgical teams at Chợ Rẫy moved immediately that night; four transplants were completed successfully, including a cardiac transplant, two kidney transplants and the region’s first lung transplant carried out at the hospital. The two donated corneas were dispatched to Huế for corneal recipients.

Less than 24 hours later a second donor, a 32‑year‑old man in Bà Rịa, extended the chain of lifesaving donations by offering heart, lungs, liver and two kidneys. Chợ Rẫy received and implanted the heart and both kidneys. The donated liver was split and sent to centers in Huế and to the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City for transplantation. The lungs were preserved at Chợ Rẫy and then flown to Hanoi for implantation at Bệnh viện Phổi Trung ương, with interstate transport carried out in a disciplined 64‑minute window from Bà Rịa to Chợ Rẫy.

Hospital leaders framed the consecutive operations as proof of advanced surgical capability and coordinated, multidisciplinary logistics. The chain of transplants extended vision and function to multiple recipients, underscored the central role of donor families, and demonstrated a national model of rapid organ transfer and transplantation cooperation.