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| 7-month old becomes youngest to undergo liver transplant | | | AGENCIES
NEW DELHI, Oct 8: It took 20 doctors and a 16-hour long surgery to give a new lease of life to seven-month-old Sivojit Paul, who became the youngest child ever to undergo a liver transplant in India.
Diagnosed with a liver disorder called Biliary Atresia -- a condition in which there is no connection between the liver and the intestine to excrete the bile -- Sivojit was brought to the Indraprastha Apollo hospital when he was six months old.
The infant's liver had failed due to persistent inability to excrete the bile which in turn oozed out to spread in his body, leading to severe jaundice.
"His case was a major challenge for us due his young age and worsening health condition," Dr Anupam Sibal, senior paediatric gastroentologist of Apollo, said, claiming Sivojit was the youngest child in the undergo to undergo such a surgery.
Sibal said a liver transplant is ideally performed after the child is above the age of one year as the risk is very high at such a young age. "Above all no such transplantation could have been carried out in India successfully."
The toddler, the doctors said, was a "high risk" baby as his general condition was week and he had undergone a KASAI surgery to join the liver and intestine, only two months back.
"As the liver transplant was the only way left to save the baby, we decided to go with the option even after even after high risk," Dr Subhash Gupta, who headed the team of doctors that performed the surgery said.
The doctors took out liver parts from his father Indrajit Paul, a Kolkata-based lawyer, and successfully transplanted it in Sivojit's body during the surgery conducted last month.
Sivojit's mother Munmun Paul said "soon after birth, my baby was detected with jaundice. But we were told it was a common problem in newborns. The gravity of the ailment was realised when his health kept on failing and the whole body turned pale".
Now when her baby is getting ready to go back home hale and hearty, an emotional Munmum said, "It is the greatest Durga Puja gift for me. I don't even want to recall those six months, they were the worst days of my life."
The doctors said the surgery cost around Rs 15 lakh, However, they were hopeful that the cost of such surgeries will come down when their number increases in future.
The baby will also have to be administered emancipation and anti-rejection medicine worth nearly five to six thousand a month throughout his life, they said.
Biliary atresia is the commonest reason of end-stage liver failure in babies. And the condition affects one in each 12,000 babies across the world. |
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