Ahmedabad hospital performs liver transplant surgery on 7-month-old baby

In a first in Gujarat, a team of doctors at the Apollo Hospitals in Ahmedabad performed a liver transplant surgery on a seven-month-old baby boy weighing just 5.5 kilogram. 

The surgery was performed on September 25 and the baby is doing fine now. The doctors said on Tuesday that it is the first liver transplant on a child under the age of one year in Gujarat. 

The baby of young parents from Bet Dwarka was suffering from rare Progressive Familial Intrahepatic Cholestasis (PFIC)—a genetic disorder that leads to irreversible liver damage. The child’s medical challenges had already begun during the first few months of his birth when he suffered jaundice.

Dr Pathik Parikh, liver transplant physician, told THE WEEK that once the condition was diagnosed in the child there was no other treatment except for the liver transplant. Since chances of getting a liver for such a young child is very low, the mother donated a portion of her liver. 

The surgery was performed by a team of doctors under the leadership of Prof. Darius Mirza, who has led the Birmingham team in performing over 6,000 liver transplants across the globe. The other doctors included Dr Chirag Desai, Dr Parikh and Dr Pushkar Shrivastava. 

Had the surgery not been performed, other vital organs of the child would have been damaged. 

The surgery, with extra precision considering the child’s age and small body, lasted for nearly 10 hours. The pre-operative planning included measures to nutritionally optimize the child so that he can withstand such a surgery. 

An estimated expense of Rs 16 lakh was met with from different sources, including the PM and CM Relief Funds and NGOs. 

Postoperative care was equally important and the baby was in the hospital for two weeks. For one week various pipes were attached to his body and that required extra care.