Five-year-old Parvathi Rohra may go down as the first successful case in the annals of medical history of a complex liver transplant and open heart surgery performed in quick succession by a team of doctors at the Apollo Hospitals.
The girl suffering from a rare genetic disorder — Alagille Syndrome — was operated last month, to give her a functional liver through liver transplant and heart surgery to correct multiple cardiac defects by a team of specialist Apollo Hospital doctors. “It is an unprecedented case anywhere in the world,” claimed head of Liver Transplant Department Manish C.Varma, who led the multidisciplinary team of specialists.
Worst is over
Frail but a recovering Parvathi weighs about 10 kg. The girl who could not lead the life of a normal child because of her rare disorder and multiple organ problems will now catch up with normal growth of her age in the next two years, says Dr.Manish. The child’s father Harish and mother Prerana Rohra (32), donor for the liver transplant, believe the worst is over for their daughter now.
Sharing the success of the high risk surgeries on a frail child weighing less than 10 kg, Dr. Manish said the parents approached the Apollo Hospitals after doctors they consulted over last two years elsewhere were hesitant to operate on a girl suffering from advanced liver cirrhosis, severe cardiac defects, lung problem and rickety bones.
“But we took it up as a challenge. Though there was no precedence of such a complex case in the medical history. We took an algorithmic approach and broke down the complex problem into various simple problems,” he said in a media conference here on Thursday.
It was decided by the team to perform an open heart surgery and then a liver transplant in quick succession. The child’s condition was not fit to deal with the problems one at a time, he said.
on January 23, Dr. Girish Warrier, paediatric cardiac surgeon performed a eight-hour open heart surgery to correct all the defects. She was then shifted to ICU for observation. After about 10 hours, Dr. Manish performed the live donor liver transplant. “We performed the liver transplant at the earliest available window of opportunity on January 24. The baby was discharged on February 7 after recovery,” he said.
Joint managing director of Apollo Hospitals Sangita Reddy said the family’s faith and expertise of doctors’ team, good infrastructure helped the Hospital achieve the successful surgery.
