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Egypt boy gets new life after combined liver-kidney transplant

Last Updated 29 November 2012, 11:27 IST

12-year-old Mukhtar Ahmed Ali Gadkarim from Egypt has got a new lease of life, thanks to his two sisters who donated their liver and kidneys for him.

Diagnosed with hyperoxaluria, which occurs in just two per million, Gadkarim underwent a combined liver-kidney transplantation at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals here.
While the eldest among the sisters gave her kidney, the other donated part of her liver for saving her brother.

The trio looked visibly relieved and happy today over a fortnight after the complicated surgery that took doctors at the hospital a marathon 17 hours to perform.

"I have got a new life. Thanks to my sisters who donated their organs," Gadkarim, who was admitted to the hospital on November 6, said.

But, his sisters -- Arwa Ahmed Ali and Asma Ahmed Ali -- interrupt him to say it was their foremost duty to save their youngest brother.

"He is like our own child. I don't consider him as a brother but as my own kid. My life did not seem big before his life for me," Arwa, 29, mother of three children, said.

The family was asked to come to India for diagnosis after doctors in Egypt failed to provide treatment for the child.

Doctors called the surgery "very challenging" and said they decided to go ahead after a proper study.

"The two women were more than ready to donate their organs. Normally in such surgeries donors should be preferably from the family. Since the family was absolutely fine, we performed the surgery successfully," Prof Anupam Sibal, Group Medical Director of the hospital, said.

Sibal said hyperoxaluria damages kidney and partly the liver because of which a kidney and liver transplant becomes inevitable.

"It affects other parts of the body as well. The kidney was transplanted first and then liver was transplanted. If one does not work, the surgery goes waste. So we have to be really careful while performing this," he said.

Ecohing his views, senior kidney transplant surgeon Prof Sandeep Guleria said it is one of the most challenging transplants in medical science as it requires extensive dialysis pre-operatively and then post-operatively.

Gadkarim, who is being discharged today, mingled well with his family and doctors at the hospital and profusely thanked everyone, with his sister Arwa even calling the doctors "angels".

Doctors said Apollo Hospitals till date has done more than 9,000 successful kidney transplants and 5 combined liver and kidney transplants. It is one of the few hospitals in the world to perform combined liver and kidney transplants.

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(Published 29 November 2012, 11:27 IST)

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