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Youngest patient undergoes successful liver transplant

VGP - A liver transplant operation of a 10-month-old baby who was suffering from a blocked duct was conducted in the Children Hospital No. 2 early this week. The baby was the youngest patient ever to receive a liver transplant in Việt Nam.

November 21, 2008 10:22 AM GMT+7
A scene of the operation
Vietnamese and Belgian doctors performed the operation on the 8.7 kg infant from Đồng Nai Province, who suffers from terminal cirrhosis of the liver.
Surgeons transplanted 270 grams of the liver from the baby’s 32-year-old mother.
It is reported that when the baby was nearly three months old, doctors used the Kasai technique, named after a Japanese doctor, to create a passageway for bile to drain out of the liver.
But the baby was infected. As a result, a liver transplant was the only choice left to save the infant’s life.
The transplant is the sixth performed at the Children Hospital No. 2 and the 12th done nationwide.
Around 230 children under one year old have received liver transplants from liver donors worldwide.
Approximately 30 to 50 children suffering from biliary artesian, the gastrointestinal disorder, are yearly treated at the Children’s Hospitals.
Việt Nam's first liver transplant was carried out on 10-year-old Nguyễn Thị Diệp from Nam Định Province by the Military Medical Institute and the National Liver Transplant Council with support from Japanese surgeons in January last year.
By Kim Anh