Liver transplant: Living-donor surgery likely by month-end

Surgeons from UK will supervise two procedures at Shaikh Zayed.

LAHORE:

Shaikh Zayed Hospital is likely to carry out its first living donor liver transplant (LDLT) surgery by end September, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Dr Tariq Bangash said the hospital was set to carry out two LDLT surgeries –a 21-year-old man donating a portion of his liver to his 46-year-old mother and a 26-year-old man donating part of his liver to a 38-year-old elder brother.

Dr Bangash said preparations were underway for the procedure. He said dates for the two surgeries would be subject to the health of the donors and the recipients and approval by a team of surgeons from Saint James Hospital in Leeds, United Kingdom. He said the team of surgeons would be arriving in a few days to supervise the surgeries. Dr Bangash said the donor and the recipient in an LDLT surgery needed to have the same blood group and be below 60 years of age.

The LDLT involves removal and transplant of a portion of healthy liver of the donor as soon as the recipient’s liver is removed.

Initially, the procedure was limited to child recipients but has lately been used to save adults as well.

Four LDLT surgeries have so far been carried out at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation. Only one of these was successful.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 3^rd, 2011.