Noida, Dec 19 (IANS) In a rare surgery, a 26-year-old youth saved his father's life by donating a portion of his liver in spite of having a different blood group, hospital officials said on Saturday.
After 50-year-old Andrew was diagnosed with liver damage due to poor food habits, the only option left for the patient was a liver transplant. Though his own son Aaron was willing to donate a part of his liver, the difference between his and his father's blood groups made it difficult.
A doctor, whom Andrew consulted, told him about the new ABO incompatible liver transplant process through which a transplant was possible even if the blood groups of the receiver and donor do not match.
According to doctors, till date people used to rely only on matching blood groups or cadaver donors, but now with the ABO incompatible technique, the lives of hundreds of patients can be saved.
"Success of this operation has given hope to people around the world who are fighting to save their lives just because they are unable to find a donor whose blood group matches theirs. Two-three weeks after the operation, the line of treatment and the medicines are similar to those patients who have undergone a normal compatible transplant," said K.R Vasudevan, senior consultant for a liver transplant, who was a part of the operative team at Jaypee Hospital.
Under the AOB incompatible transplantation, a simple blood test is performed first to determine the number of antibodies in the blood stream. Most people have a level of antibodies that is treatable.
Following that, there is a treatment done to reduce the blood group antibodies of the organ receiver. Once it is done antibodies of the blood group of the receiver are removed using a process of plasma exchange. Then finally the task of removing the cells that make more of antibodies in the blood group is done and a medication called intravenous immunoglobulin or IVIg is given to the patient to decline the antibodies completely, after which the transplant is possible.
The WHO says that every fifth person in India suffers from some liver complication. Annually, around 250,000 patients die of liver failure in India owing to cirrhosis. Over 25,000 patients need a liver transplant every year, but only 1,100 actually manage to undergo transplantation.
In a recent survey conducted by Jaypee Hospital across 51 schools in the National Capital Region, over 8,054 students were examined and out of them, 22 percent were found to be overweight, which also affects liver among other body parts.
Abhideep Chaudhary, a senior doctor at the hospital said: "35 individuals donate organs per million population in Spain, in Britain, the number of such people is 27, in the US it is 26 and in Australia it is 11, while in India, in a population per 10 lakh, only 0.16 percentage of people donate organs."
