Global Hospitals, Hyderabad and King's College Hospital, London are to provide a new lease of life to children afflicted with end-stage liver disease by undertaking living related liver transplantation free of cost. The offer may be valid for next 1-2 years and is open for children in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and West Asia. And these transplants will be conducted on children between 1 to 12 years of age.

Dr. Mohd. Rela, liver transplant surgeon of King's College Hospital said that around 3000 to 4000 children in India and in its neighbourhood needed liver transplants every year. But at present most of such children were dying due to lack of awareness of liver transplantation as the choice of treatment in irreversible liver disease, absence of readily accessible qualified and equipped institutions to undertake liver transplantation and the inability of families to meet the prohibitive costs.

Dr K Ravindranath, managing director, Global Hospitals said that Global Hospitals will make the facilities available, and surgeons from both the hospitals will carry out the transplantation without charging any fees. The relatives of the children who undergo the liver transplantation have to meet only the costs of medicines and disposables. Global Hospitals is floating a children's trust so that it can meet even these costs, with contributions from philanthropists.

Children suffering from biliary tract mal-development, metabolic disorders and fulminant failure are the main candidates for liver transplantation. In the case of children, a mother or father or an uncle or an aunt can donate a segment of the liver for transplantation. Children with transplanted liver can lead a normal and productive life.

Although the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994, permits harvest of organs from brain-dead people, donation of organs is yet to become popular in India. Living related transplantation in children is not a problem, as a segment of the liver is taken from a first degree relative. The liver has a capacity to re-generate both in the donor and the recipient.

Global Hospitals has an understanding with the liver transplantation unit of King's College Hospital, under which the King's hospital surgeons are stationed at Global Hospitals on a continuing basis to undertake liver transplantation and complicated liver surgeries and monitor post-operative progress. King's Hospital has the distinction of carrying out about 2500 liver transplants in the last one decade.

Dr. Mohd, of Indian origin entered the Guinness Book of Records by performing liver transplantation on a five-day-old baby in 1998. In June 2003, he carried out liver transplantation in a 3-1/2 year old girl at Global Hospitals by taking a slice of her mother's liver. Dr. Mohd. has so far performed about 750 liver transplants including 300 in children.

The 150-bed Global Hospitals has successfully carried out both cadaveric and living related liver and kidney transplantations. It is getting ready to undertake heart transplantations. Government of India's Technology Development Board has part funded the facility so that it will emerge as a centers of excellence and set benchmarks in multi-organ transplantation.

Liver transplantation has become the optimal choice of treatment in end-stage liver diseases in many advanced countries. Innovations in surgical techniques, dramatic developments in immuno-suppression therapy and the wealth of experience gained by transplant surgeons have all made liver transplants a success story.