Hyderabad BTech student gets new life after rare liver transplant at OGH

Hyderabad: A 17-year-old girl received a boon of life through ‘Jeevandan’, Telangana’s organ donation scheme, after receiving a liver transplant at the Osmania General Hospital (OGH) under the ‘Super Urgent’ category.

The patient, Blessy Goud, a resident of Film Nagar, was brought to OGH in a critical condition and was admitted to the Surgical Gastroenterology ICU with acute fulminant liver failure on May 12.

The patient had been suffering from a fever and jaundice for the past five days and was initially admitted to a private hospital but was later shifted to OGH due to her worsening condition and financial constraints.

She was intubated and connected to a ventilator because of grade 4 Hepatic encephalopathy/coma. The patient was suffering from deep jaundice with her bilirubin (yellowish substance produced when your body breaks down red blood cells) at 23 mg/dL, which is 20 times the normal limit.

Her blood failed to clot properly, and she was suffering from Metabolic acidosis, meaning her body fluids were too acidic, posing a risk to the organs.

Living donor liver transplantation was ruled out since there wasn’t a fit donor in the family, the patient being an only child living with a single mother.

Telangana’s organ donation scheme ‘Jeevandan’ provides for a Super Urgent category where a request is reviewed by a liver expert committee and given approval for cadaver liver allocation within 48 hours.

Any brain-dead donor from any hospital is allocated to provide for the super urgent category patient as life life-saving measure.

This was the first instance where an emergency liver transplantation for Acute Fulminant Liver Failure was carried out under super urgent category with the help of Jeevandan.

A brain-dead donor was identified from another private hospital, and the surgery was performed on May 14. The patient was discharged after two weeks and is currently writing her B Tech first-year exams.