The Hindu : New Delhi News : Sir Ganga Ram celebrates a hundred liver transplants

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Saturday, Nov 25, 2006
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Sir Ganga Ram celebrates a hundred liver transplants

Staff Reporter

Makes it to the top 10 live liver donor transplant centres in the world

NEW DELHI: Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has become South Asia's first centre to complete 100 liver transplants and in the process claims to have made it to the list of the top 10 live liver donor transplant centres in the world.

At a press conference here on Friday, chairman B.K. Rao said the Liver Transplant Programme was conceptualised at the hospital way back in 1996 by Dr. Samiran Nundy, chairperson of the Department of Surgical Gastroenterology.

"The programme started in 2001 and in five years we have carried out the transplants with an overall success rate of 86 per cent. This year alone the hospital has performed 58 live donor liver transplants with 93 per cent success rate," he said, adding that the cost of transplant here was much less compared to Western countries.

However, much still remained to be done as there was a huge requirement of liver transplants in the country, he added.

Senior liver transplant surgeon Dr. A.S. Soin attributed the success to the state-of-the-art infrastructure and a highly skilled team of six surgeons, four hepatologists and eight anaesthetists besides other medical staff.

He said the team had undertaken eight emergency liver transplants of those suffering from acute liver failure and whose survival chances were slim.

The doctors said liver donation by brain-dead patients should be encouraged for the benefit of the needy.

Among the beneficiaries of the transplant present on the occasion included Yaqoob, who lives in Myanmar, and Pranay Saraogi, a last-semester student of the National Defence Academy who had slipped into coma after he fell ill due to hepatitis.

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