A 9-year-old boy gets new lease of life after liver transplant at Lucknow hospital

Lucknow : A 9-year-old boy from Prayagraj got a new lease of life after undergoing a liver transplant at Medanta Hospital, Lucknow.

The boy was suffering from acute liver failure due to the Hepatitis A virus and was admitted to a hospital for three days, where he was not responding to medical management.

The patient was transferred to Medanta Hospital and within 12 hours of admission, the hospital managed to do a workup of donor and recipient and perform urgent living donor liver transplantation. The child was discharged in stable condition after two weeks. Two months later, the kid is stable and living a normal life.

The liver transplant was performed by Dr AS Soin, chairman of Medanta Institute of Liver Transplantation and his team of surgeons, including Dr Amit Rastogi, Dr Prashant Bhangui, and Dr Rohan Jagat Chaudhary. Senior paediatric gastroenterologist Dr Neelam Mohan and Dr Durgaprasad along with anaesthetists Dr Vijay Vohra and Dr CK Pandey, were also part of the team.

Dr Soin said, ‘Paediatric liver transplantation is very challenging. It is technically difficult because of the small size of children and the smaller diameter of the artery, portal vein and bile ducts. With our vast experience of over



450 paediatric liver transplants, we are happy to provide this facility at our hospital in Lucknow. We advised liver transplantation for the boy as soon as we examined his condition. His father, with the help of his relatives quickly arranged all the logistics. The boy’s mother was the donor, and she donated her left lobe of the liver, which was around 40%.”

Dr Rohan Chaudhary, consultant hepatobiliary and liver transplant surgeon, said, “On 26th April 2022, the child presented with worsening jaundice. His condition was worsening and he would have gone into a coma if no transplant was done. On 27th April 2022, a living donor liver transplant was successfully performed.”

Dr Durgaprasad explained that paediatric liver transplant cases are challenging because of small doses of medicines as per body weight and high susceptibility to infections. “The boys’ liver failed due to Hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection. Acute HAV infection is common in children but rarely, only around 2% progress to acute liver failure,” the doctor said.

Dr Rohan Chaudhary said the boy will have to take certain precautions like not eating raw vegetables or outside food for a year, not playing in the dust, and always wearing a mask when outside, among others.