New lease of life for Pak toddler

A one-year-old Pakistani boy has become the youngest liver transplant recipient in India after doctors here replaced his diseased organ with a healthy one donated by his grandmother.

Doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi conducted the operation on June 21 by cutting out 25 per cent of the left liver from Nasreen Fatima and transplanting it to her grandson, Sheryar. Little Sheryar, born with Biliary Atresia, a condition in which the bile ducts of the liver are absent, was given only a few months more to live by doctors in his hometown of Karachi unless he underwent a transplant.

Announcing that the hospital is now conducting liver transplant for upto one-year-old patients, Dr B K Rao, chairman of the board of management at the hospital said they have already conducted about 74 liver transplants, with a success rate of about 90 per cent.

Dr A S Soin, one of the doctors who conducted the surgery, said there were many challenges faced by the team while undertaking the task. "The blood vessels of the baby are very small, so we had to use magnification glasses to connect them. Also, the main artery was completely blocked due to the advanced stage of the disease," he said. Since the baby was in a very serious condition, it took the hospital six weeks of intensive medical and nutritional care to prepare him for the eight hour-long surgery, said Dr Neelam Mohan, the hospital's paediatric liver specialist.

Sheryar's parents, Syed Arshad Hussain and Saima Arshad said they came to know about the operation being done here after reading in a newspaper about the successful operation of another Pakistani boy, Safi, last year. "We talked to Safi parents over phone and they were very happy and satisfied with their experience in India. So we contacted the hospital authorities and they told us to come immediately," says Sayed.

And the family says their experience in the country has been a "happy" one, with everybody being so helpful and caring. "Many people, even strangers outside the hospital, tell us that they are praying for us after hearing our story," says Syed. Sheryar has been discharged exactly a month after undergoing the operation and doctors says the boy should lead a normal life.