A baby boy has become China's youngest liver-transplant
recipient - thanks to the ingenuity of Shanghai doctors.
Haohao, the 106-day-old
boy, has some time with his parents in Xinhua Hospital before
doctors on Saturday transplanted part of his mother's liver in a
life-saving procedure.
Surgeons at Xinhua Hospital carried out a delicate, intricate
and potentially perilous nine-hour operation on Saturday when they
excised part of the mother's liver and placed it in her 106-day-old
son.
Both the mother, 35, and infant are in a stable condition.
If the boy, named Haohao, continues to recover well, he is
expected to leave hospital in three to four weeks, doctors said
yesterday.
The mother, a Zhejiang Province native, donated 215 grams of
her liver to save the boy, who suffered from congenital biliary
atresia, a condition where bile cannot drain from the liver due to
an absence or closure of ducts.
"The boy's liver had been seriously hampered by the disease,"
said Dr Wang Jun, from Xinhua Hospital's pediatric surgery
department. "If he did not have the surgery, he could have died of
liver failure within a year.
"Currently, liver transplant is the only effective method of
treatment."
The earlier the transplant surgery, the smaller the impact on
other organs due to the impaired liver function, Wang said.
Doctors said because the boy is so young, his immunity system is
still in its primary stages, making rejection of the new organ less
likely.
The surgery began at 8:30 AM on the mother to take the section
of her liver, which was then transplanted into the boy from 10:30
AM.
The entire procedure finished about 5:30 PM.
A liver transplant in such a young patient is considered risky,
as his arteries are only two to three millimeters in diameter.
Doctors must suture the liver arteries quickly as a child can
only survive for 40 minutes without the vital organ.
(Shanghai Daily May 21, 2007)
