BHUBANESWAR: After a long wait of over a decade, the first ever complex liver transplantation was conducted on a patient with end-stage liver disease at SCB Medical College and Hospital (MCH) at Cuttack on Wednesday.
The 35-year-old wife of the middle-aged patient donated 60 per cent of her liver to her husband as transplantation was the only option left.
With this, Odisha’s premier medical institution became the first government health facility to start liver transplantation in the state. It was also the first public hospital to conduct kidney transplantation 12 years back. The 10-hour long procedure was conducted on a 45-year-old patient by a joint team of 30 medical experts from SCB MCH and Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG), Hyderabad led by renowned liver transplant surgeon Dr P Balachandran Menon. The liver cirrhosis patient from Tigiria was under treatment for the last four years.
Hospital sources said, the patient was among the first few in the state’s transplant waiting list. The condition of both the donor and the recipient is stable after the critical procedure, and will be under close observation for the next one month.
Organ removal and subsequent transplantation were initiated after approval from the authorisation board headed by SCB MCH medical superintendent Dr Sudhanshu Sekhar Mishra. The organ removal process began at 7.30 am and transplantation was over by 5.30 pm. A nine-member team from AIG had arrived to train the SCB surgeons and other health staff on the procedure.
Dr Mishra termed it a major achievement for the state health sector in live organ donation and transplantation. Although earlier other live organ transplants like kidney have been carried out successfully by government hospitals in the state, liver transplantation was conducted for the first time. The entire procedure was done free of cost, he said.
“This would pave way for planned liver transplants further. There are several patients seeking liver transplant. The government will have to take a decision whether it would be free for all or affordable, and fix a criteria for selection of cases since the procedure involves huge logistics cost and manpower,” he added.
The family of the patient expressed gratitude to SCB since it would have been impossible for them to get the transplant at corporate hospitals which charge anything between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 30 lakh.
In 2013, the state government had announced to set up a liver transplant unit at SCB and sanctioned Rs 22 crore a year after the kidney transplant unit started functioning. It was delayed due to several factors, including vacancies in key posts.