7-Month-Old Child Gets Rare Liver Surgery

P Nitish, weighing just 5.5 kg, at the age of 7 months and 13 days, is one of the youngest in India to undergo liver transplant surgery. It's any parents fear to bring a new child into the world and find out they have a disease. The baby boy was suffering from Biliary atresia. Biliary atresia is a congenital liver condition where the bile cannot drain from the liver through the bile ducts to the intestines. Bile helps to digest fats in the body and also carries waste products from the liver to the intestines for excretion.

If they are not treated they become malnourished and are easy prey for infections and complications of cirrhosis and a majority of them do not survive beyond 2 years.

A team of doctors led by Dr Manish C Varma, chief transplant surgeon at Apollo Hospitals in Hyderabad, performed the rare surgery last month by transplanting a small part of his father P Nagarjuna's liver in him. The infant is doing well and has since been discharged, according to a release from Apollo Hospitals.

Known to affect 1 in 10,000-15,000 newborns, the surgery costs Rs 25 lakh. Nagarjuna and his wife Durga Prashanti, from West Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh, raised the sum from various sources.

Nitesh will need immunosuppressants all his life, but his overall growth will be normal. There will not be any long term limitations to his growth, learning and life expectancy," Dr Manish Varma added.

Source-Medindia