BeyondHeadlines Correspondent
Pune : The first successful pediatric liver transplant in Pune was performed in KEM Hospital, Rasta Peth, recently from a living mother to the child.
Master Mayuresh a three year old child was suffering from Budd Chiari syndrome, a rare disease, which destroyed his liver. He was barely holding on. The only thing which was going to save him from certain death was a LIVER TRANSPLANT. Fortunately, his mother’s blood group was O +ve, a universal donor. So the Zujam family from Rajgurunagar pursued this idea of getting a Liver Transplant for their son.
They went from one centre to another. Sayali, his mother was investigated extensively and it was confirmed that she can donate a small part of her liver to her son. However, there was a serious limitation. The cost everywhere was exorbitant and they coming from a middle class family, it was way beyond their means and could not afford it .Their pursuit brought them to KEM Hospital where they met a team of extremely competent doctors and the Hospital assured them of affordable and compassionate treatment and costs for the liver transplant.
On the ‘D’ day, both Mayuresh and Sayali underwent a very complex and prolonged surgery in one of the most sophisticated pair of operation theatres. A part of the mother’s left lobe of her liver was critically removed preserving all the blood vessels and its bile duct. Simultaneously Master Mayuresh was undergoing a very difficult operation where his entire liver was removed. Later in the day the part of his mother’s liver was reimplanted in Mayuresh’s tummy.
This meant a very delicate joining of blood vessels to each other and joining just 1mm wide bile duct to the intestines. There were ups & downs, but the team of anesthetists were constantly vigilant and the surgeries ended safe & sound. The total duration of the operation was around 12 hours.
The next battle was for the child’s body to accept the new gift from his mother. This needed a tremendous vigilant and balanced intensive care. It needed a precise understanding of immunosuppression and hemodynamic stability. Twenty days of ups and downs eventually scripted the fate of this first paediatric liver Transplant. It was successful and Mayuresh, Sayali and the Zujam family left for their home, happy & content. They said in one sentence while going “We are going from one home to another”. The doctors, sisters and mama /maushi’s of KEM Hospital were their extended family.
The team involved in this historical milestone of our city included Dr S S Bhalerao, Dr Shashank Shrotriya, Dr Ashish Bavdekar, Dr Madhu Otiv, Dr Harshal Rajekar, Dr Lobo, Dr Saroj Bande, Dr Joy Jana, Dr B D Bande, Dr Deepali Rao, Dr Chordiya and Dr.Anuradha Potdar (TheTransplant Coordinator). They were well supported by the pathology department and the blood bank.
