The Hindu : National : A new lease of life for this toddler

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 03, 2006

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National

A new lease of life for this toddler

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI: Creating history of sorts, one-year-old Sheryar of Pakistan has become the youngest liver transplant recipient in India.

After the eight-hour surgery on June 21 at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here, Sheryar was discharged a month later. Though still under observation, he is progressing fast and should be headed for home by August 20, say doctors.

At a press conference on Wednesday, senior consultant and liver transplant surgeon A.S. Soni described the operation as "a path-breaking procedure." Sheryar was born with biliary atresia, a condition in which the bile ducts of the liver (responsible for draining the bile produced in the liver into the intestinal tract for digestion) are absent or underdeveloped. This causes deep jaundice, pale stools and lack of digestion soon after birth. Bile is trapped within the liver cells, rapidly causing damage, scarring and cirrhosis, ultimately resulting in liver failure and death.

At the age of three months, Sheryar underwent corrective surgery in Pakistan but it was not successful, necessitating repeated hospitalisation for infections and bleeding.

Worried about Sheryar's fast deteriorating condition, his parents got in touch with a couple in Pakistan whose child had received similar treatment at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

"Having compared the cost and quality of the same treatment in other countries, we decided to opt for India. When we came to India my child was undernourished and too weak to undergo surgery. He was admitted to the hospital and prepared for surgery. He was put on a specific diet and his weight rose from six to nine kg, and thereafter the operation was performed.

Though both Sheryar's mother and grandmother were found to be a good match as donors, his 44-year-old grandmother, who works in a bank in Karachi, insisted on giving the required 25 per cent of her liver. We are happy with the outcome of the entire procedure," said Syed Arshad Hussain, Sheryar's father, who works in Dubai.

On the challenges that doctors faced during the surgery, B.K. Rao, chairman of the board of management of the hospital, said: "The main blood supply route (the portal vein) of the child's liver was irreparably blocked and doctors had to establish a blood supply system to the liver. In addition, the surgery was made difficult by the need for dissection and tying of hundreds of small blood vessels."

The donor operation was tailored to suit the child. "For the first time, we removed a segment of the donor's liver, which fitted in the child's abdomen."

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