A complicated surgical process became the highlight of this year's Charity Day on Sunday, after surgeons successfully operated on a teenage boy's heart.

Qiu Lixing, from Ruijin, in Jiangxi Province, is in stable condition at Shanghai's Ruijin Hospital. After a second surgery in about six months' time, he is expected to fully recover and lead a healthy life.

Doctors from Shanghai's Ruijin hospital said Qiu was purple and weak when they first examined him in his hometown, so they brought him to Shanghai.

After further examination, they decided he had a serious Tetralogy of Fallot (ToF), one of the most common heart defects among children. The condition causes low-oxygen blood to mix with oxygen-rich blood, meaning the blood has less oxygen than the body needs.

Qiu was picked to be the recipient of this year's charity surgery in conjunction with Shanghai's seventh Charity Day, which is on February 4.

Ning Wei, a Beijing resident, donated 50,000 yuan (US$6,410) to support Qiu's surgery. The funds mainly covered equipment costs.

"Usually children born with ToF undergo surgery at a very young age," Dr Zang Wangfu said before the operation.

"Their bodies can accept the changes to their hearts' structures more easily when they are young."

Qiu had been abandoned as a baby, and was adopted by Liu Cuijiao and her husband. The poor farmer couple took the boy to a local hospital, where they learned that he needed a surgical procedure that could not be done locally.

"They told me he could have the surgery at a big hospital in Beijing or Shanghai, but it would cost more than 100,000 yuan (US$12,820)," Liu said.

It is thought that Qiu is about 14 years old, which added to the difficulty of the operation.

"After consultation and examination, we made two sets of plans, and prepared for all possibilities," Li Hongwei, director of Ruijin Hospital, which is attached to Shanghai Jiaotong University.

"The situation was worse than we expected," Zang said during the live broadcast of the operation on Sunday. "We decided to take the appeasement plan, which involved enlarging the blood vessel linked to the lungs and cutting off the excessive muscle in his right ventricle."

"The surgery was successful," Zang added.

(China Daily February 6, 2007)