PUNE: A seven-month-old baby boy weighing 5.8kg successfully underwent a living donor liver transplant at a city hospital on May 27, making him perhaps the youngest patient in the city to undergo this procedure.
The boy was diagnosed with a rare metabolic disorder called tyrosinemia four months after his birth. “His liver functioning worsened rapidly within 15 days of diagnosis. He slipped into an acute liver failure due to tyrosinemia and suspected hepatocellular carcinoma,” transplant surgeon Gaurav Chaubal told TOI.
The complex surgery was carried out after the blood group of the boy matched with that of his grandmother (47). She then donated a portion of her liver (120 grams) to the infant, who had been on a supportive treatment for a month prior to the procedure.
The infant showed continued improvement after the transplant and was discharged on June 10. “The liver in a normal six-month-old child is about 3% of his/her body weight, which comes to about 200 grams. We removed the baby’s diseased liver and fitted a liver graft of 120g, almost the size of a chikoo, taken from his healthy grandmother. The baby, who is youngest in the city to undergo this procedure, is doing fine now,” Chaubal said.
The complex surgery took over 12 hours and was carried out at the Jupiter Hospital in Baner by a team of transplant surgeons headed by Chaubal. The portion of grandmother’s liver fitted in the baby started secreting the critical enzyme soon after the transplant, he added.
The other member of the team were transplant surgeons Aditya Nanavati, Apurva Deshpande, Hunaid Hatimi and Suryabhan Bhalerao.The child was managed medically by paediatric gastroenterologists and hepatologists Vishnu Biradar and Pavan Hanchanale
In a living donor liver transplant, a portion of a donor’s liver is removed and used to replace a patient’s diseased liver. After surgery, the donor’s liver regenerates back to full size while the patient’s new liver also grows to normal size.
Courtesy: TOI
