Dr. Kumud Kumar Dhital, pioneer of the world’s first Dead Heart Transplantation, has joined Yashoda Hospitals Hyderabad

He is the Program and Surgical Director of the Institute of Heart and Lung Transplantation

Hyderabad. Yashoda Hospitals Hyderabad in Telangana state is a multi speciality group and has been providing quality healthcare for 3 decades now, for people with diverse medical needs. They announced the joining of Dr. Kumud Kumar Dhital, who will now lead the Institute of Heart and Lung Transplantation for the group.

As a Program and Surgical Director of the Yashoda Institute of Heart & Lung Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support (MCS), Dr. Kumud Kumar Dhital will be dedicating himself fully to the Yashoda Heart & Lung Transplant program with additional practice in Pulmonary Endarterectomy for patients with Chronic Thrombo-embolic Pulmonary Hypertension.

Dr. Kumud Dhital is globally renowned for being the surgical pioneer of the world’s first Donation After Circulatory Death (DCD) or Dead Heart Transplantation, from distantly procured donor organ. In 2014, at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney in Australia, he was the Principal Surgeon leading the teams for both the initial organ retrieval and the DCD Heart transplant procedures.

This procedure has been described as the most significant advance in heart transplantation over the past 3 decades and was subsequently adopted by the UK and some European heart transplant centres, with several US centres commencing these surgical procedures only in the late 2019. He has been involved in machine perfusion of thoracic donor organs since 2006. In Australia, he has been performing standard brain-dead and DCD lung transplants with standard cold-static preservation.

When asked as to why he moved to India, Dr. Kumud Dhital cites the challenge and excitement of contributing to increasing the number of thoracic transplants in India where the current numbers total less than 5% of what is required.

He feels the talent amongst his multi-disciplinary colleagues, the enormous technical advances in the country and the necessary corporate support are the right mix to foresee an exponential increase in heart and lung transplantation in India.

He adds, “I wanted to give back to the region where I hail from and feel enormously privileged to serve my patients through their darkest time.”

He is of Nepalese origin, and born in Italy and educated in the UK, Dr. Dhital brings 24 years of experience in Cardiothoracic Surgery. 18 years of experience in his career include Heart & Lung transplantation and MCS therapy in the UK, Italy and Australia.

Whilst his depth and breadth of experience allows him to provide a comprehensive surgical service in both Cardiac and Thoracic surgery, Dr. Dhital will also be involved in complex heart and lung surgeries including repeat and corrective surgeries for heart and lung.