Faustão: We have never talked so much about transplants, say doctors – 09/10/2023 – Health

When it was announced that presenter Fausto Silva, 73, was in surgery to receive a heart transplant, users on social media began to comment that the speed in obtaining the organ was related to the alleged fact that he had jumped the SUS queue ( Health Unic System).

The information, which is false, was soon denied by the Ministry of Health. Despite the distrust being worrying, doctors who operated on Faustão state that the population’s lack of knowledge shows that this is an opportune moment to talk about the country’s unique and public transplant program. country.

“It gave the Ministry of Health the opportunity to explain how this unique national list of transplants is coordinated for patients and which follows criteria of weight, size, immunological part, blood type and very well-defined severity criteria”, says Fernando Bacal, coordinator of the Heart Failure and Transplant Program at Albert Einstein Hospital.

Fábio Antônio Gaiotto, cardiovascular surgeon at Einstein, says that the presenter’s operation caused a commotion. “I’ve been working with organ transplants for 12 years and there’s never been so much talk about the transplant queue. What used to be unknown is now common currency, talk in shopping mall corridors, everyone talks about it”, he says.

Despite Brazil being a world reference in organ donation and transplants, the proportion of family members of brain-dead patients — one of the criteria for the patient to be eligible for some transplants, such as heart transplants — who refused the person to be a donor is high. and it has grown.

According to data released by ABTO (Brazilian Association of Organ Transplants), in the first half of 2022, it was 45%. In the same period this year, the rate rose to 49%.

For doctors, the numbers demonstrate that it is necessary to explain to the population about the entire process, from patient assessment to transplantation, the post-transplant segment and successful cases in which patients live long again. well after the operation.

“It’s a great job to show and make people aware of the importance of talking about transplantation at home”, says Bacal.

The conversation is fundamental, since in Brazil the decision to authorize or not authorize the patient’s organ donation rests with the family. “If there is no such conversation, in the case of a fatality, it is not so simple for the family to make a decision”, explains Bacal.

For the doctor, publicizing the procedure is a way for Brazil to have numbers similar to those in Spain, the champion in donation, in the future, which has 40 donors per million inhabitants.

This semester, Brazil recorded 19, a number that represents an increase compared to rates during the pandemic, when the index fell to 13.7 in 2021, compared to 16.9 in 2019.

Between 60% and 70% of patients with advanced heart disease could die within a year if they had not received a transplant. Although the chance of success is high, 90%, there is the possibility of body rejection.

The post-operative period involves between 15 and 30 days in the hospital and until the sixth month there is a possibility that the body will reject the transplanted organ, which is why medications are prescribed and the period requires great care. But, in general, patients who have undergone the procedure usually return to work after two to three months.

In addition to physical health, there is a concern about mental health. “We usually make it very clear that that heart belongs to that patient who has to fully resume his life”, says Bacal.

The doctor also reinforces the importance of anonymity between donor and recipient so that the donor’s family can experience this grief naturally and the recipient patient’s family can fully resume their life.

Among the teachings of patients waiting for transplants is the fight for life. “If you have life, you have to have hope for this heart to arrive. You can’t give up. The situation of near death transforms the lives of transplant recipients greatly”, says Gaiotto. “They are reborn.”