Nine-month-old gets liver from mother in a 14-hour surgery
AN UNSUCCESSFUL SURGERY AT THE AGE OF TWO MONTHS LED TO IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE TO THE LIVER, CAUSING CIRRHOSIS
MUMBAI:A nine-month-old boy, Kavya Raut, who was born with a congenital disease, successfully underwent a liver transplant in a surgery that lasted for 14 hours.
It was Nisha, his mother, who donated 210gm (25%) of her liver to save the life of her toddler, weighing only 5.6kg.
A resident of Gholvad, Palghar, Kavya was born with a congenital disease – biliary artesia (absence of bile ducts that carry bile from liver to intestine).
An unsuccessful surgery at the age of two months resulted in irreversible damage to the liver and caused cirrhosis. “His growth and body weight came to a complete halt. Doctors told us that he also developed deep jaundice along with a life threatening infections,” said his father, Vivek, who is a daily wage worker.
The family then decided to shift him to Wockhardt Hospital, Mumbai Central for further treatment.
“Liver transplantation in children weighing less than 10kg is very challenging. In Kavya’s case, due to previous surgery, the small and large intestine was densely stuck to the liver and we couldn’t afford even 300-400ml of blood loss due to his less body weight,” said Dr Anurag Shrimal, Hepato Pancreatico Biliary surgeon.
“We harvested a very small portion of liver (left lateral segment) weighing 260gm. But that was too big for the baby. We further reduced the harvested liver using special techniques to 210gm,” Dr Shrimal said.
As transplantation was done by joining tiny blood vessels (3-5mm diameter), on reperfusion (restarting the blood flow), the liver turned pink and started working immediately.
Kavya was discharged after complete recovery on July 5. Zahabiya Khorikawala, managing director, Wockhardt Hospital, said that medical social worker of the hospital worked hard to arrange finances for surgery and post-transplant care. Nisha and Vivek didn’t have words to express their happiness with their only kid getting a new life.