Doctors perform liver transplant on smallest patient

Doctors have successfully performed a liver transplant on the world’s smallest patient.

The life-saving transplant was done on a five-month-old baby weighing 1.8 kilogrammes after she was diagnosed with advanced liver failure. The baby was born 10 weeks prematurely.

Four months after the surgery in February, doctors at Columbia University say the delicate procedure was successful. “The donor organ wasn’t a matching blood type and it was substantially larger than her diseased organ, but it was critical that we proceed.

To accommodate its size, we created an artificial abdominal wall,” explained Dr Tomoaki Kato of Columbia University Medical Centre.

“Unlike other organs, the liver has the unique ability to adapt itself to the patient’s body. In this case, the organ is making itself smaller. As she grows, her new liver will grow with her,” said Dr Kato.

While the Americans were agonising over the girl, doctors at the University of Nairobi had an almost similar case. Doctors A. Laving and M. Ndiritu were confronted with a seven-week-old infant with signs of acute liver failure.

“He had been feeding well, on both breast and formula milk until a few days earlier when he started tiring during feeds,” the doctors write in the East African Medical Journal.

Doctors Laving and Ndiritu tell of a gruelling battle that saw them make more than 18 tests to conclude that their patient was suffering from a rare condition called galactosaemia, where the body fails to process a sugar called galactose commonly found in milk and many other foods.

The child made a good recovery after the doctors eliminated galactose from his diet. But the boy may not be out of the woods yet, with the researchers saying the condition is complicated. The boy, like his US counterpart, was lucky to have landed at the referral and teaching hospital when he did.

The similarities show that high quality medical training schools are important and can work even in poor settings. Of the US case, Dr Kato says: “This surgery shows that transplantation is possible — although only at an academic medical centre with appropriate resources.”