Easing the burden of transplants

PROFESSOR Jean Botha studied at the University of the Witwatersrand’s medical school before moving to Cape Town to complete his surgical training. But the lack of liver transplants to hone his skills frustrated the young doctor, who moved to the US to train.

He returned to South Africa last year, armed with training in paediatric liver transplants. As part of the only surgical team in South Africa — at Wits University’s Donald Gordon Medical Centre — that does “live liver transplants”, he wants to ease the burden on organ transplants.

‘‘We have a huge burden of disease in this country that is right now unaddressed in both people with medical care and indigent patients. This opportunity is available for all our patients to get transplants and avoid death while waiting for a [donor],” Botha said.

The unit has completed 240 liver transplants — 200 adults and 40 children. The youngest recipient was nine months and the oldest 72.

He said the main cause of liver failure in children was a condition called biliary atresia. “This is when children are born with bile ducts that don’t develop. So they are born with jaundice and progressively get more jaundice and eventually die from cirrhosis within the first two years if nothing is done about it.”

A conventional liver transplant takes between four and five hours, but the procedure of transplanting a piece of liver from a live donor takes a day to complete. —