A first for Ukraine: Kyiv doctors transplant a heart and a liver into one patient at once

The first operation of its kind

A multidisciplinary team at Kyiv City Clinical Hospital No. 1 has, for the first time in Ukraine’s history, successfully performed a simultaneous combined heart-and-liver transplant in a single patient. The Kyiv health department announced the news, Ukrinform reports.

The operation lasted about 15 hours. Such procedures are among the most complex in modern medicine and are performed only in a limited number of specialised centres worldwide.

A patient who waited eight years

According to programme head Maksym Pavlovskyi, the hospital’s medical director for anaesthesiology, transplantation and high-tech care, the patient is a 44-year-old Kyiv resident with severe heart and liver disease. Back in 2018 he was placed on a waiting list for a combined transplant in Minsk, but never received the care he needed.

His condition later became critical: his heart’s ejection fraction dropped significantly, he suffered repeated life-threatening bleeding from oesophageal varices, and his cardiovascular and liver failure progressed. Transplanting both organs was his only chance of survival.

Why both organs

A combined transplant is needed when both the heart and the liver are severely damaged and replacing only one organ would not save the patient: severe liver failure makes heart surgery too risky, while a weak heart cannot withstand a liver transplant. So both organs from one donor are transplanted during a single operation, which demands special preparation and teamwork.

How the surgery went

The doctors transplanted the heart first and then the liver. A heart-lung machine supported circulation during both stages. A particular challenge was maintaining stable circulation during the liver transplant, when surgeons temporarily clamp the inferior vena cava.

To minimise the risk of complications, the team planned in advance a switch from the heart-lung machine to veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) — a technology that supports circulation and blood oxygenation. Thanks to a carefully planned connection scheme, the doctors moved to ECMO without additional venous cannulation. After the main stages and bleeding control, the patient was transferred to intensive care.

The operation required close coordination among cardiac surgeons, transplant surgeons, anaesthesiologists and perfusionists — the specialists who run extracorporeal support equipment.

The donor and the family’s decision

The donor was a young man who had suffered a haemorrhagic stroke; doctors declared brain death. To stabilise his condition, the medical team also had to use ECMO, which helped maintain his vital functions and gain time for organ retrieval. Deceased donation is what makes such operations possible: behind each one is a decision taken by a family at the hardest moment.

First results

Within the first day after surgery, the patient was taken off the ventilator. He was conscious, breathing on his own, sitting up and eating. He is now stable and remains in intensive care.

Transplantation during the war

According to Ukrinform, 473 organ transplants were performed in 21 medical facilities in Ukraine in the first nine months of 2026. The first combined heart-and-liver transplant is another step in the development of Ukrainian transplantology: patients who once had to seek help abroad or wait for years can now be treated at home.