The first combined transplantation of a heart and lungs in Japan is planned at Osaka University Hospital on Saturday from a man in his 30’s

who has been certified as brain dead, the Tokyo-based Japan Organ Transplant Network said.

The heart and lungs of the man, who was pronounced brain dead yesterday at Hyogo Emergency Medical Center in Kobe where he was being treated for head injuries, is scheduled to be transplanted to a man, also in his 30s, at the hospital in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, the network said.

In addition, the donor’s liver will be transplanted to a man in his 50s in Fukuoka, the pancreas and one kidney to a woman in her 40s in Tokyo, and the other kidney to a man in his 50s in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.

The donor had indicated his willingness to provide his small intestine as well, but the network said it could not match the organ with a prospective recipient.

It is the 79th case in Japan in which a brain-dead person’s organs will be transplanted based on the Organ Transplant Law, which came into effect in October 1997.

According to the network, the combined transplantation of the heart and lungs can be carried out only when it is determined that each of the donor’s organs is suitable for a patient chosen from a waiting list for the multiple-organ transplant.

Registration for patients wanting to undergo a heart-lung transplant began in 2003, but the network has had to give up on arranging such an operation in the past as suitability could not be confirmed.

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