Liver transplants give new life to two children with complex health conditions

A liver transplant on a child is underway. (Photo: VietnamPlus)

Hanoi (VNA) – Doctors from the National Children's Hospital and the 108 Central Military Hospital have successfully performed life-saving liver transplants on an 18-month-old girl and a 5-year-old boy, both suffering from complex, life-threatening illness.

The girl was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma, a very rare malignant tumor, in her 11th month after birth, according to Dr. Nguyen Pham Anh Hoa, head of the Hepatology Department and Dr. Bui Ngoc Lan, head of the Oncology Department of the Hanoi-based National Children's Hospital.

Her cancer was already at the terminal stage upon detection, they said, adding that the tumor grew so large and occupied most of the child’s liver volume that removing it was impossible, as there would be too little healthy liver left.

Despite her undergoing six courses of chemotherapy and embolization, the patient’s tumor was still growing rapidly, posing a high risk of metastasis.

Treatments applied by doctors did not meet expectations in controlling the tumor growth and increasing the volume of the remaining healthy liver parts to enable liver resection.

The volume of the liver tumor remained unchanged while its malignancy increased day by day, threatening the patient’s life with high possibilities of adverse complications.

After consultations between the two hospitals on May 25, Associate Prof. Dr. Tran Minh Dien, Director of the National Children's Hospital decided to conduct a liver transplant to save the girl.

The donor is her mother, a 41-year-old woman.

In order to minimize the immune adverse reactions caused by blood type incompatibility, hepatologists not only used pre-transplant medical therapies but also prepared prevention options for post-transplant rejection reactions.

Doctors from the National Children's Hospital and the 108 Central Military Hospital consult each other before a liver transplant starts. (Photo: VietnamPlus)

Dr. Le Van Thanh, head of the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery at the 108 Central Military Hospital said that despite the complicacy of the operation, experienced doctors from the two hospitals managed to perform it successfully on May 29.

The girl recovered two weeks later and was discharged from the hospital.

The other transplant was performed on the 5-year-old boy who suffered from cirrhosis, portal hypertension, and biliary atresia on June 27. He is also in a good condition now.

For the two children, liver transplant was the last and only option to save their life, Thanh said.

These are the first successful liver transplants for children performed by Vietnamese doctors. Before, they could only be conducted with the help of foreign surgeons. They offer a beacon of hope for children with terminal diseases.

A meeting is held for checking preparations and consulting before liver transplants take place. (Photo: VietnamPlus)

Earlier this year, the 108 Central Military Hospital signed an agreement on liver transplant training and technology transferring with the National Children's Hospital. The operation took place just several months after the agreement.

Similar agreements on organ transplantation were also inked between the 108 Central Military Hospital and four other hospitals, namely the National Lung Hospital, Da Nang Hospital, Military Hospital 175 and Thanh Nhan Hospital.

Since liver transplantation began at the 108 Central Military Hospital nearly four years ago, the hospital has successfully performed such surgeries on a total of 85 patients so far, including 27 emergency transplants for people with acute liver failure. Some 95 percent of the surgeries were done with living donors.

The one-year survival rate reached more than 90 percent.

The Hanoi-based hospital aims to modernize its facilities for organ transplantation and become a hub for such surgeries by 2025./.