60 artificial heart transplantations scheduled for 2013 in Kazakhstan

60 artificial heart transplantations are scheduled for 2013 in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports citing chairman of the National Scientific Cardiosurgery Center Yuriy Pya. “This is the artificial heart implanted to the patients with heart failures. They require a heart transplantation, but it is a very complicated issue. This is like an alternative of heart transplantation. There are patients on the waitlist. We have scheduled 60 surgeries on implantation of the artificial heart ventricles. The actual heart transplantations will be made if there is an opportunity to do them. But as many patients cannot wait for a donor, we are making these surgeries,” Yuriy Pya said. Speaking of the Center, he noted that it was the youngest structure in the National Medical Holding that is called to facilitate implementation of innovative medical technologies available in the world. “We have sufficient material and technical base and personnel to do it. We can do everything that is done elsewhere in the world. We have successfully adopted technologies like heart transplantation that we performed last August and implantation of artificial auxiliary devices in cases of heart failures. There were also a range of other surgeries that we had never made before. We are planning to make it all affordable for all the Kazakhstan citizens. Our plans are also to render services to citizens of the neighboring countries, but this option is not available yet,” Yuriy Pya said. By Baubek Konyrov