Man gets new life in first living liver donor transplant at PGIMER Chandigarh
The liver donor and recipient were discharged on the seventh day after surgery and the 26th postoperative day, September 2, 2023, respectively
Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) conducted its first successful living donor liver transplant on a 46-year-old male patient from Uttar Pradesh.
The transplant was conducted on August 7, 2023, and the liver was donated to the recipient by his wife. Both the recipient and donor had an uneventful recovery. The donor and recipient were discharged on the seventh day after surgery and the 26th postoperative day, September 2, 2023, respectively.
Speaking about the surgery, PGIMER director Dr Vivek Lal said, “The patient had been suffering from chronic liver disease, and a liver transplant was the only survival option. He had been awaiting a transplant for the past three years. His wife donated 55% of her liver to her husband. The total time duration of the surgery was around 12 hours.”
The couple is undergoing regular follow-ups at the hospital and the immunosuppressant of the recipient was under close monitoring, Dr Lal added.
While complimenting department of surgical gastroenterology’s Dr TD Yadav and his team, Dr Lal said, “Living donor transplants are routinely done in our country and help reduce the waiting period for liver transplants. At private hospitals, it usually costs around ₹35 lakh. At PGIMER, it costs about ₹14 lakh for both donor and recipient.”
In 2019, six-year-old Suraj, the first patient to get a liver transplant from a living donor at PGIMER, had died around a month after the surgery.
“We have added another milestone by starting an exclusive paediatric bone marrow transplant service at Nehru Hospital of the institute. Six beds have been approvedexclusively for paediatrics. These six beds will be under Amita Trehan, in-charge paediatrics haematology and oncology, department of paediatrics,” Dr Lal said.
The director revealed that of the 520 transplants done till date, 84 were for children. He said the dedicated beds will help the hospital better cater to children needing bone marrow transplants and reduce the waiting period.
“The organ transplant programme in PGIMER is one of the most prolific one with 4,800 renal transplant surgeries done so far. What is heartening is that with 225 renal transplant surgeries done till date in 2023, we have already surpassed the numbers accomplished during the last entire year,” he said.
PGIMER is first govt hospital to hold successful CAR-T cell therapy trials
PGIMER has also become the country’s first public hospital to successfully implement the groundbreaking Chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR-T) cell therapy during a clinical trial at the department of clinical haematology and medical oncology.
CAR-T cell therapy is a type of cancer immunotherapy treatment that uses immune cells called T cells that are genetically altered in a lab to enable them to locate and destroy cancer cells more effectively.
Speaking of the latest feat, department of clinical haematology head Dr Pankaj Malhotra said, “This innovative therapy was initially administered to a patient diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia on March 14, 2023, followed by additional cases involving lymphoma and another leukaemia patient. Encouragingly, all three patients have shown positive progress following the treatment.”
While addressing a press conference at Kairon Block, PGIMER director Dr Vivek Lal said, “To provide robust ecosystem for patient care, we need to create independent departments as has been seen from the prior experience that an independent department makes a colossal difference as far as the patient care is concerned and we are seriously considering to create independent departments in the near future.
