Doctors at Artemis Hospital, Gurgaon conducted a rare surgery of liver transplant on an underweight baby-girl, weighing 5.2 KG, using one segment of the liver donated by her mother. The baby, from Saudi Arabi, had an underdeveloped portal vein. This vein is a blood vessel that carries blood from gallbladder, gastrointestinal tract, spleen and pancreas to the liver.
A liver has eight segments. Generally, for a living donor transplant where the recipient is a small child and donor is an adult, two segments of the liver are used. Doctors at Artemis Hospital said this one-year-old girl was suffering from a congenital disorder - Biliary Atresia – transplanting two segments wasn’t possible. There was a risk of insufficient blood flow to revascularized the liver. To reduce this risk, surgeons replaced it with a bovine jugular vein.
To avoid this, surgeons separated segments II and III of the liver which has longer blood vessels and used segment III for the transplant.
Dr. Giriraj Bora, joint chief, gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary surgery at Artemis Hospital, said bovine graft vein is used in liver transplantation. The baby has recovered well from the surgery.
The child had prolonged and deep jaundice months after her birth. Doctors in Saudi Arabia diagnosed her with biliary atresia and conducted biliary bypass surgery but it was unsuccessful. The doctors then advised liver transplantation. However, taking her body weight and nutritional status in considerations, doctors in Saudi Arabia was reluctant to perform such a complex surgery and she was referred to India.
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