Living liver transplantations in Manipal Hospitals

Vijayawada: Manipal Hospitals achieved yet another milestone as it became the only hospital to perform living donor liver transplantations in both adults and children in the state. Addressing the media here on Tuesday, Dr Renu Kumar, Consultant Liver Transplant Surgeon, Manipal Hospitals said living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) has several advantages over cadaveric liver transplantation.

LDLT is performed electively before deterioration of the patient condition and also gives time to optimise and stabilise the patient and choose suitable donor thereby reducing the waiting list mortality and overall morbidity.

He said during the last one year, they performed four living donors transplant as there were no cadaver donors and the clinical condition of those patients were rapidly deteriorating. In the first case, Baby Ramya, a 7-year-old was suffering from 'Budd Chiari Syndrome' which is a very rare condition. The only solution for this condition was a liver transplantation.

Although she was registered in Jeevandhan Cadaveric Programme, in view of rapidly deteriorating clinical condition of the child, mother came forward for LDLT donation. After thorough donor evaluation of the mother, she was found to be fit for liver donation and the surgery was performed. Now 14 months post-transplant, both the mother and child are doing well.

He said that in the recent times, there has been a decline in the availability of cadaver organs due to lack of awareness among people and various myths associated with organ donation. Therefore considering the situation, living donor liver transplant is life saving for critically sick patients suffering from acute liver failure.

Dr Sudhakar Kantipudi, director Manipal Hospital, Vijayawada, said this is an important milestone for our hospital. "I am extremely delighted, as we are successfully running a living donor liver transplant programme in our hospital. This is the only hospital in the new state of Andhra Pradesh to perform both cadaveric and living donor transplantations for both adult and children.