HANOI: Surgeons at Vietnam’s 108 Military Central Hospital have carried out a rare multi-organ transplant using organs from a brain-dead soldier, saving five patients in a single day.

The operation on Sunday involved transplanting a heart, a split liver, two kidneys, lungs and two corneas in one of the most complex transplant procedures ever performed in Vietnam.

The donor was a 55-year-old serviceman who had suffered multiple strokes and was declared brain-dead following a massive cerebral infarction. His family agreed to donate his organs, enabling doctors to carry out simultaneous transplants across two hospitals.

The operations were led by Major General Le Huu Song, Director of the 108 Military Central Hospital.

The hospital said one patient received a heart transplant, two others were given kidneys and two more received portions of a divided liver – one adult patient at the military hospital and a child at Vinmec Hospital in Hanoi

The lungs were transferred to the National Lung Hospital, and two corneas were preserved for later transplants.

The in-situ split liver transplantation – a method that divides the liver inside the donor’s body while maintaining blood flow – is among the most advanced techniques in transplant surgery and was first successfully performed in Vietnam by the same hospital in 2024.

The heart transplant was also particularly complex. The recipient had been surviving on a mechanical heart pump and suffered from extensive scar tissue, but surgeons managed to limit the heart’s ischemic time – the period it is without blood flow – to only 80 minutes.

All five recipients are recovering well, with both transplanted kidneys functioning normally within hours of surgery, according to doctors.

“Each donor represents a story of compassion and a chance for others to live. That’s the true meaning of our work,” said Le Trung Hieu, Deputy Director of the hospital’s Organ Transplant Centre.