Nagpur: The 41-year-old woman recipient of the first ever
liver transplant in city is doing well and was off ventilator by Tuesday evening. She will be in the hospital for 7-10 days more.
Dr Rahul Saxena, the operating liver surgeon, told TOI the patient was suffering from auto-immune hepatitis. “In this disease liver inflammation occurs when the body's immune system turns against liver cells. The exact cause of autoimmune hepatitis is unclear, but genetic and environmental factors are also responsible,” he said.
Since the patient had long been suffering from the disease, she had gone into liver failure. She had registered herself at many transplant centres in the country and was awaiting her turn. She had to be called from Delhi when New Era Hospital got the cadaveric liver on Sunday. “The operation lasted about eight hours from 8pm on Sunday night to 4am on Monday. The patient is now well and is in the special ICU with a positive pressure room to prevent infection,” said Dr Saxena.
Dr Saxena said next 2-3 days will be very crucial for her. The transplant has already started functioning in the body. It will be another 6-8 weeks before the body stabilizes and functioning becomes normal. The rejection rate in liver transplant is 5 to 10%. Generally, the infection is controllable with medicines but it takes about three months before the body can be said to have accepted the organ.
“In case of cadaver liver, we take the entire organ. In live donor, only the right lobe which is about 50% of the organ is taken. The organ after harvesting from the donor must be transplanted within six hours. It involves very intricate surgery in which the bile duct, the portal vein and the hepatic artery of the donor organ and the recipient have to be stitched together,” explained Dr Saxena.
The surgery costing Rs22 lakh plus was the first liver transplant in city and region. The liver was donated by the family of a 24-year-old woman from Amravati. The donor was suffering from a brain disease.
