Seven-month-old baby gets new lease of life at Aster CMI

Bengaluru: In a surgery that lasted for 10 hours, a seven-month-old baby Abdullah, underwent a liver transplant for Biliary Atresia at Aster CMI Hospital. The congenital condition is seen in one among 10, 000-15,000 babies across the world. The doctors at the hospital good Samaritans by raising crowd funding close to Rs 35 lakh.

Hailing from Kundapur, Karnataka, baby Abdullah had symptoms of jaundice, including yellow eyes, dark urine soon after his birth and, in the 5th month, the child started showed the symptoms of liver failure. On further evaluation, it was found that the baby had Biliary Atresia a congenital abnormality wherein the tract which is supposed to drain bile from liver into intestines was not formed. Hence, bile was being continuously accumulated in the child's liver which eventually drained directly into blood leading to jaundice and later resulting in liver damage and chronic liver failure. Children born with this condition require a surgery called Kasai's procedure within the first few weeks of birth.

Even though the child had undergone Kasai's procedure at a local hospital when he was 5 months' old, he did not improve and he developed progressive liver failure.

Explaining the complications in the Abdullah's liver transplant, Dr. Sonal Asthana, Lead Consultant - HPB & Liver Transplant Surgery said: "Biliary atresia is a rare condition where bile ducts do not develop in some children. If not treated on time, the liver can fail and liver transplant is the only solution. The child's mother had come forward to donate her liver, however, she did not have a compatible blood group. The child then had to undergo a special process to remove antibodies that were present in his liver and through this process his liver was made compatible with his mother."

"When Abdullah was referred to us he weighed only 5.8 kg out of which 3kg was the fluid accumulation in his body. This had made his breathing extremely laborious and the child was malnourished. It was a challenge for us to ensure the child's safety during the surgery and ascertain that he recovers well during the post-operative care. While performing the surgery we took extreme care that the child did not lose much blood and we were able to maintain his fluid balance. Our primary goal during the surgery was to ensure the safety of the child for those 10 hours." said Dr. Arun V, Lead Consultant, Anesthesia and Critical Care.

Sharing his views on the case, Dr. Chetan Ginigeri, Consultant - Department of Paediatrics & Neonatology said: "Liver transplant in children is a challenging task and more so in babies that are small, owing to malnourishment. In such small babies, the blood vessels are very small, their lungs are also not strong enough and their immunity is very low which further increases their risk of infection. Post the transplant the child was on ventilator for almost five weeks. As he was just 7 months' old it took some time for him to recover. We also had to perform a tracheostomy on the child to enable him to breathe properly. As the child was unable to feed properly, we had put him on tube feeding. At the time of his admission, Abdullah weighed just 5.8 kg, however, post recovery the child has now gained an optimum weight of 8 kg. We are glad that we could provide this life-saving transplant to the child in the nick of time."

Thanking the doctor, Abdullah's father Mr Mohammed Riaz, said: " It is an unexplainable moment for us to see our child living a normal life. The hospital not only provided our child with optimum care but also put an earnest effort to ensure our son's survival by helping us raise close to 35 lakh for the surgery."