An eight-year-old boy with an End-Stage Liver Disease (ESLD) got a new lease of life, thanks to his mother and the team of doctors who made the “impossible possible” at the Manipal Hospital in collaboration with the South Asian Liver Institute.
The boy, Sudheer, was suffering from chronic congenital liver disease with high sodium MELD (model for end-stage liver disease) score. He was severely unwell with high bilirubin and growth retardation.
Liver transplantation was inevitable for Sudheer, and the only suitable donor in his family was his mother, said doctors at a press conference held at Manipal Hospital on Tuesday.
But the mother had a peculiar liver anatomy, a single non-bifurcating portal vein, which made the transplantation almost impossible, they added.
South Asian Liver Institute’s Senior Liver Transplant Surgeon Tom Cherian, who led the team of doctors, performed the paediatric liver transplant surgery using a new technique and approach, the doctors said.
Dr. Tom Cherian said donor portal vein was reconstructed outside the patient after left lobe liver resection using specifically created grafts. He said the Hepatic venous anastomosis was done in the same way, but the biliary duct anastomosis was done first followed by the Hepatic artery, which in normal cases was done the other way around.
Manipal Hospital director Sudhakar Kantipudi said, “Doctors and nurses at the hospital have been able to pull off this feat due to their vast experience in liver transplantation. Dr. Tom Cherian, using the new technique, could save the life of the boy. The mother and the boy are doing well.”
