Medanta Institute of Liver Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine recently organised the fourth International Liver Symposium (ILS) at The Leela Ambience at Gurugram.
The event saw participation of experts from 22 countries. They shared perspectives and new learnings on hepatology, liver surgery and transplantation, deliberating on practice and direction of liver diseases and transplantation.
The three-day symposium based on the theme debates in liver diseases and transplantation offered an academic platform comprising the world’s leading experts and key opinion leaders like Dr Patrizia Burra, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, University Hospital of Padova, Italy, Dr David Grant, Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto, Prof Anil Dhawan, Kings College Hospital, London, and Prof Nigel Heaton, Head of Liver Transplantation at King’s College Hospital.
Experts from Institute of Liver Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine, Medanta – The Medicity, including Dr A S Soin, chairman and chief surgeon, Dr Neelam Mohan, director, paediatric liver transplant, Dr S Saigal, director, hepatology and Dr N Saraf, director, hepatology, also took part.
As many as 30 per cent of the adult population in India suffer from fatty liver. Liver cancer is the second largest cancer killer in India and cutting-edge treatment options and surgeries specific to these issues were presented at the symposium. Other than lifestyle changes, liver experts discussed the encouraging preliminary results with a new class of drugs - the FXR agonists - that can now reverse fatty liver. Results with new drug lenvatinib for advanced liver cancer were also presented. Dr AS Soin elaborated on Medanta’s globally acknowledged protocol, which now enables successful cure of advanced stage-4 liver cancer by combining cyberknife and TARE, followed by transplant. He also spoke about the role of machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence in donor–recipient matching, and outcome after liver transplantation.
The group of experts also deliberated on alternative approaches to managing and treating hepatitis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, acute-on-chronic liver failure, alcoholic liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, hepatic surgery and critical care in adults and children.
“The International liver symposium is a convergence of the leading minds, techniques, and innovations for gastroenterologists, hepatologists, liver surgeons, anaesthetists, intensivists, paediatricians, interventional radiologists and researchers from across the globe. The incidence of liver disease has risen and liver medicine and surgery have seen phenomenal rise over the last decade. At the Medanta Liver Transplant Institute, we run the world’s second largest living donor liver transplant programme, performing more than 250 transplants annually. Our team has an experience of almost 2,800 liver transplants. ILS reflects our commitment to the currency of knowledge and harnessing it to deliver the best globally benchmarked treatments,” Dr AS Soin said at the event.
A cultural programme was held as part of the event in which people who had undergone liver transplant 10-15 years ago expressed gratitude to their donors through an emotional, musical medley.