Achievement: First living donor transplant by local doctors

Same operation, with the help of British doctors, conducted at PIMS.

ISLAMABAD:

The first living donor liver transplant carried out by a team of local doctors was successfully completed at Shifa International Hospital (SIH) on Monday. The same team carried out the second such surgery a day later.

The surgery on Muhammad Yasin, a 12-year-old boy from Akora Khattak, was carried out on April 30, while a surgery on Asad Mir, 47, was held on May 1.

This was shared by the team of the surgeons headed by Dr Faisal Saud Dar at a press conference at SIH on Wednesday.

The 30-member liver surgical team was headed by renowned liver transplant surgeon Dr Dar, who has been offering complex hepato-pancreatic-biliary (HPB) surgery for well over a year at SIH. He was earlier working in the UK.

Sharing the details, Dr Dar said Yasin’s body accepted a living donor liver graft from a paternal cousin Humaira Sadaf, 24. About 350 grams from her left lobe was taken for the procedure.

“His blood group is A-negative and did not match with any of his sisters, upon which Sadaf, who is O-negative, volunteered as the donor,” he said, adding that the child had been suffering from a liver disease since childhood and had come to SIH for treatment. “His liver was severely damaged and two months ago he had started vomiting blood,” he said.

Meanwhile, the very next day, Mir was operated upon after his son Waqas provided the donor graft.

The donors and recipients are in the surgical intensive care unit (ICU) and recovering well, he added.

It was a three-and half hour’s surgery and was carried out in a simple manner.

“Yaseen’s surgery was done with a lot of care and during it no blood transfusion was done,” he said.

He said the hospital’s liver transplant programme was initiated in 2009 with a goal of undertaking its first living donor transplant within three years.

Dr Najmul Hassan Shah, a consultant gastroenterologist, said that liver transplant surgery is not new to Pakistan but many previous efforts fizzled out in the past, the real challenge would be to sustain the effort.

Meanwhile talking to The Express Tribune, Sadaf’s brother Mohammad Sohaib said Yaseen’s father used to run a general store in Akora Khatak and had recently left for the US.

Sohaib said the hospital administration has given a rough estimate of Rs4.5 million for his surgery and treatment, for which Yaseen’s father sold his house.

He said few that the family had taken Yaseen to Peshawar for treatment a few years back but it did not work. Later, he was brought to SIH, where his worsening condition left him needing a liver transplant.

PIMS liver centre holds first surgery

The first living donor liver transplant at the Liver Transplant Centre (LTC) of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) was carried out on Wednesday.

Talking to The Express Tribune Pims spokesman Waseem Khawaja said since the establishment of this centre, in 2011, this was the first transplant carried out. The team of surgeons was from the UK and Pakistan.

The surgery on Attaullah, a middle-aged man whose liver was damaged by hepatitis B, started on Wednesday morning at around 6 am and went on till the evening. He was then shifted to the intensive care unit (ICU). His wife was the donor.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2012.