The National Children Hospital in Hanoi yesterday announced its successful operation on a below one year old infant weighing 6.7 kilograms, the youngest and the most underweight baby so far in the country to undergo the transplantation.
The baby was diagnosed with liver failure caused by progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC), a group of rare disorders which are caused by defect in bile secretion and present with intrahepatic cholestasis, usually in infancy and childhood, from the third month of age.
He has been taken to the medical facility regularly because of the disease. His life is at risk now; accordingly, physicians decided to carry out a liver transplantation to save him.
Chief of the infirmary’s Surgery Ward Dr. Pham Duy Hien said that the operation was a real challenge for the group of surgeons because the baby was too small.
With the assistance of Professor Chin-Su Liu, head of Children Ward of Taipei Veterans General Hospital and his peers and the direction of Professor Le Thanh Hai, director of the National Children Hospital, 40-strong surgeon group gained success in performing the operation. Surgeons took a part of the liver of the baby’s father to transplant.
Now the baby is recovering.
