PUNE: In the first such instance in the country and the second in the world, the liver of a 42-year-old brain dead woman, who herself received a kidney transplant two years ago, has been donated and successfully transplanted into a 66-year old liver cirrhosis patient.What makes the case unusual, say experts, is that the woman’s liver was found fit to be harvested and transplanted despite she having been on immunosuppressive drugs for the last two years. Immunosuppressive drugs are administered to make a recipient’s body less likely to reject a transplanted organ.
The longer a person is on them, the more likely it is that the drugs would affect the body’s vital organs rendering them unfit for transplant. The woman, who worked with Doordarshan in Mumbai, was declared braindead on January 1 after suffering intracranial bleeding.
The liver transplant, which took place about a week ago, has charted a new course in the field of organ donation as transplant recipients can now be recognised as potential donors on being declared braindead, experts said.
When contacted, professor Vimal Bhandari, director of National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), said, “Such a case has never been reported before. This is perhaps the first case in India where a donor who was herself a kidney recipient donated her liver that gave a new lease of life to another needy patient.”
NOTTO is the apex networking organisation created with the primary aim of building a national network of hospitals with the capability of “retrieving” organs and also developing a national registry.