New Delhi (PTI): Doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital claim to have performed world's youngest domino liver transplant and saved the lives of two children.

Two children who were suffering from terminal liver diseases have undergone a sequential transplant in which 22-month-old Shourya, one of the patient suffering from a critical liver disease, was given one fifth of his aunt's liver.

His own liver, after ensuring that disease does not pass on, was transplanted to another patient -- two-year old, Siya -- who was battling with terminal liver failure due to a rare condition called Langerhanss Cell Histiocytosis (LCH).

It is due to the sequential nature of the transplants that the domino transplants are so named, explained Dr A S Soin, specialist in liver transplants at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

Chairman of the hospital, B K Rao, claimed with the transplants, Shourya is India's first and the world's youngest recipient of a living donor liver transplant for Maple Syrup Urine Disease, and Siya the country's first and the world's youngest recipient of a domino liver transplant.

Siya is also the first child to be cured of LCH with a transplant, he added.

"Maple Syrup Urine Disease is caused by a lack of an enzyme in the body, a patient with the disease who receives a liver transplant is able to make enough of the enzyme in the new liver to compensate the shortage elsewhere in the body," Dr Soin said.

"The patient's liver which is otherwise entirely normal, can be transplanted to someone else without passing on the disease because the receiver's other parts can make the enzyme lacking in the liver," he explained.

He added that the procedure required careful planning for several weeks.

"As it had never been done on such small children, the world was watching us, and now that we have been successful, congratulatory messages are pouring in," Soin said.

The hospital engaged a team of 20 specialists for 16 hours of marathon surgery last month to conduct the double transplant.