Amidst COVID-19 restrictions, Apollo Hospitals, Bangalore performed liver transplant on a patient who travelled from Mumbai with his daughter who donated 65% of her liver.

Amidst COVID-19 restrictions, Apollo Hospitals, Bannerghatta, Bangalore successfully performed liver transplantation surgery on a patient who was suffering from cirrhosis for over a year. Patient’s 24-year-old daughter who was the eldest of his children, donated 65% of her liver to save her father’s life.

A Mumbai-based cotton mill owner was suffering from cirrhosis for more than a year and had lost 80% of his liver. In June, his family decided to go for organ transplantation, when Karnataka had a relatively lower number of COVID-19 cases. He arrived at Bangalore’s Apollo Hospitals, Bannerghatta Road with his daughter, an MBA student. They found that organ donations had drastically decreased and the waiting list was very long. Patient’s situation was critical, as he was suffering from jaundice and there was fluid accumulation in the liver.

His daughter realised that there was no time and decided to donate a part of her liver. The 15-hour transplant procedure conducted on June 23, 2020 and included a six-hour surgery to extract a part of the donor’s liver. Dr Sandeep Satsangi, Hepatologist at Apollo Hospitals said that donor’s liver would regrow in 4-6 weeks and she would be back to normal. “In this patient’s case, we removed the non-functional part of the liver and replaced it with donor’s healthy liver. Both recipient and donor were treated with utmost care and have recovered,” the doctor said.

“It wasn’t even a choice. He is my father. Of course, I was going to do this,” said the daughter, who donated 65% of her liver to her father.

Dr Sanjay Govil, Dr Suresh Raghavaiah, Dr Jayanth Reddy, Dr Raje Gowda, Dr Anindita and Dr Nagesh were part of the surgery team. “Following lockdown, organ donation has drastically decreased. There is a huge delay leading to an anxious wait for patients,” said Dr Sandeep.