First Combined Liver-Kidney Transplant Performed at PGIMER

Doctors performed first combined liver-kidney transplant at PGIMER, Chandigarh, on a terminally ill patient. Organs donated by girl declared brain-dead in Bihar

The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India, has performed its first simultaneous liver-kidney transplantation on February 3, 2018.

The combined liver-kidney transplant was performed on a 40-year-old male patient who was admitted to the institute with liver and kidney failure.

Common Types of Liver diseases leading to Liver Transplantation
Liver disease that ends in liver failure (end stage liver disease), disrupting several important metabolic functions needs liver transplant for patient survival.

‘Doctors performed the first simultaneous liver-kidney transplantation at PGIMER, Chandigarh, India, on February 3, 2018, on a 40-year-old male patient. The organs were procured from a girl from Bihar, who was admitted at the institute after a road accident and was declared brain dead on February 2, 2018.’

The transplantation was made possible by the donor family of a young girl from Bihar. The girl was brought to the institute in an extremely critical condition on January 25, 2018, after a road accident that happened on January 24, 2018.

She had been admitted to the institute after sustaining a severe head injury. On 2nd January, 2018, the girl was declared brain dead.

After the girl’s family decided to donate the girl’s organs, her liver and one of the kidneys were transplanted to the 40-year-old male patient while the other kidney was transplanted to another patient. In the decision of the National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), the heart was airlifted to Delhi as there was no matching recipient for the heart at PGIMER. It was allocated to a Delhi hospital for the matching recipient.

Liver Transplantation - Facts, Contraindications, Procedure, Follow up, Complications & Prognosis
Liver transplantation is a surgical option for the treatment of liver failure where the diseased liver is replaced with a healthy one.

According to Prof. Jagat Ram, Director of PGIMER, “Team PGIMER has done it again. It has performed its first CLKT, one of the most complex and demanding organ transplantations.”

Dr RK Dhiman, Head of Department, Department of Hepatology, PGIMER, said, “It was a sequential transplant where the liver was replaced first, which took around 10 hours, followed by the kidney transplant. The surgery began around 5 am on Saturday and lasted till night.”

Paired Donor Exchange Kidney Transplantation
Paired donor exchange kidney transplantation is a process in which unrelated kidney donors are matched to recipients so that compatible transplants can be performed.

Officials of PGIMER expressed their appreciation for the generous gesture of the braveheart donor family of a young girl from Bihar, who was declared brain dead by the Brain Death Certification Committee.

The Medical Superintendent at PGIMER, Prof. Anil K Gupta said “Words cannot describe the selfless gesture of the donor family. Due to their decision, the donor family has given a new lease of life to three terminally ill patients.”

About Transplantation
Since the early times, the novel idea of transplanting tissues and other body parts from one organism to the other has captured the imagination of successive generations.

Source-Eurekalert