Heart transplantation surgery will be carried out for the first time in Vietnam this year, Hanoi’s Army Hospital 103 announced March 14.

Surgeons at the hospital will undertake the difficult procedure sometime in 2010, said Major General Hoang Manh An, the hospital’s director, adding that heart transplants are among the most complicated of organ transplant surgeries. 

Unlike liver or kidney transplant patients, heart transplant recipients rely on the donation of a heart from someone who has been declared brain-dead but remains on life support. The donor heart must be matched as closely as possible to the recipient’s tissue type to reduce the chance the patient’s body will reject the new heart.

The Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health assigned the Army Hospital 103 to begin offering the procedure as part of a major Government project.