Hyderabad Global Hospital Performs Rare Liver Transplant
An unique and innovative pediatric liver transplant procedure performed by liver transplant surgeons at Global Hospitals here helped a mother save her ten-year-old son.
Speaking to reporters here on Wednesday, Global Hospitals Group chairman and managing director Dr K Ravindranath and liver transplant surgeon Dr Thomas Cherian said that it was a very difficult and different kind of liver transplant.
“Such surgeries are not common in the world. It was challenging but things went off smoothly and the patient was saved,’’ Ravindranath said. “When 10-year-old Shiva Sai, who was suffering from liver failure, came to us he was suffering from jaundice. He was even found to be Hepatitis A positive and his condition was rapidly deteriorating. We had only 36 to 48 hours to save the boy and in such a short time getting a perfect donor was very difficult. His mother agreed to donate a part of her liver to save her child.
However, during the scan it was found that she had an unusual liver anatomy where a normal right hepatic vein was absent and out flow of blood in the hepatic veins of her liver was unusual. A standard donor operation would have put her life at risk,’’ Cherian said. As there was very little time the surgeons came up with an innovative idea of extracting the liver from the donor and also implanting into the recipient with minimum risk.
The surgeons used the right sided liver vein in the boy to reconstruct the lower portion of the middle liver vein in the mother’s liver graft. ‘’Our idea worked and both the mother and the child are doing well,’’ Cherian said.
Both the donor and the recipient, who were present at the press conference said they were feeling normal and were recovering fast.
Ravindranath said the cases of liver failures in the country are on the rise. He said if an acute liver failure patient gets a matching donor for transplant there is 90 percent chances of his survival.