Seven-year old with Wilson’s Disease transplanted with liver

Hyderabad: A seven-year-old boy, suffering from a rare genetic disorder Wilson’s disease and acute Liver failure has been operated upon by Transplant Team at city-based Apollo Hospitals.

On January 14, a team led by Dr Manish C Varma performed liver transplant on the boy using a slice from his mother’s liver, a release from Apollo Hospital said.

Wilson’s disease is a genetic disorder in which copper builds up abnormally in the liver, eyes and brain. “This overload of copper in the liver resuts in Liver failure. Often an otherwise apparently normal child can suffer with life threatening acute liver failure in this setting, warranting urgent liver transplantation,” said Dr Ramesh Srinivasan.

“When we saw the patient, he had very high bilirubin



levels and his clotting parameters were so abnormal, we had to give him Fresh Frozen Plasma to keep his INR in the safe limit”, said Dr Manish Varma, Chief Liver Transplant Surgeon at Apollo Hospitals, Jubilee Hills.

“Thankfully, the boy’s mother, a homemaker, had a matching blood group and the liver was found to be fit for donation and doctors performed liver transplant. However, for the transplant team challenges were far from over. The part of the liver that the mother donated, came with two very small blood vessels. The size of the vessels was 1 mm and 1.5 mm,” the doctors said.

“It is technically very challenging to join blood vessels that are small and the chances of they clotting again in the post-operative period was also very high.” Dr Manish Varma added.