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World’s first simultaneous dual transplant in Delhi
Tripti Nath/Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 8
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here claims to have overtaken some of the best transplant centres in the world by doing a simultaneous liver and kidney transplant on a teenage boy with ‘gift of life’ from two live donors.

The tireless efforts of the hospital’s transplant team and the love of caregivers has given a new lease of life to Ganesh Nehru, a 15-year-old California-based boy dignosed with primary hyperoxaluria, a rare genetic disease in which the liver is deficient of an enzyme called AGT and produces too much oxalate.

In the absence of this enzyme, the oxalate levels become very high. Oxalate is a normal metabolic constituent of the body, which is detoxified by the liver through AGT. When oxalate levels become high, they produce stones and choke the kidney.

Dr Neelam Mohan, paediatric hepatologist who described Ganesh as extremely cooperative and mentally strong, said, “The accumulation of oxalate crystals due to the absence of the enzyme results in kidney failure and death by the second or third decade of life. A timely dual liver and kidney transplant is the only way to save such patients”.

The large-hearted donors in this case were the boy’s mother Hemlatha, who donated one of her kidneys, and her brother Mohan Ram, who donated half of his liver to ensure that Ganesh has a normal life-expectancy.

A ninth standard student hailing from Madurai, Ganesh is all set to resume his studies and sport back home and pursue his ambition of becoming a software engineer like his father, Nehru Sathappa. He is being discharged today after three weeks of stay in the hospital.

The success story, the first of its kind in the world, has been scripted by Ganga Ram Hospital’s transplant team besides hepatologists, intensivists, paediatricians, operation theatre crew and anaesthetists.

The 18-hour long procedure conducted on April 17 and 18 had three persons under the knife at the same time.

Dr A.S. Soin, senior liver transplant surgeon in charge of the case, explained “The liver donor and the patient were operated upon simultaneously. After the liver was removed from the live donor and taken to the recipient in the operation theatre, third OT was prepared for kidney donation. Then the kidney donation operation was performed. While this was being done, the new liver was being put into Ganesh. A few minutes after the liver transplant, he got a new kidney transplant”.

Dr Soin said he had come across only two reports in world literature, in Brazil and Turkey, where such a technique had been done using the same live donor.