First ‘living donor liver transplantation’ of NK region performed at KLES Kore Hospital

KLES Dr. Prabhakar Kore Hospital and MRC, Belagavi, has achieved a milestone of sorts, by successfully performing the ‘living donor liver transplantation’ surgery for the first time in North Karnataka.

Addressing presspersons in Belagavi on Saturday, chief gastroenterologist and liver specialist at KLES Dr. Prabhakar Kore Hospital Santosh Hajare said that the surgery was performed on a 56-year-old farmer from Harugeri town of Raibagh taluk.

“His 29-year-old son came forward to donate a part of his liver to save his father’s life who was suffering from end-stage liver failure. The surgery was done last week and Post-surgery both the donor and recipient are doing well and the donor (son) is being discharged today,” he said.

Dr. Hajare said that the highly complex and technically demanding surgery was performed in collaboration with Aster hospitals, Bengaluru, led by chief liver transplant surgeon Sonal Asthana and his team, including Vachan Hukkeri and Rommel S. and the KLE hospital team led by Sudarshan Chaugale and Kiran Urabinahatti.

Dr. Asthana briefed about the surgery which required highly trained surgeons, state-of-the-art infrastructure, transplant OTs, dedicated ICUs and high-end patient monitoring systems.

The surgery took nearly 10 hours and a team of expert anesthetists comprising Arun V., Rajesh Mane, Manjunath Patil, and Roopa M.N. assisted surgeons while the nursing team was led by Vaishali Sable and Rudresh Hiremath.

Liver transplant coordinators Geeta Desai and Basavaraj Majati handled the entire process from counselling to surgery and discharge.

Dr. Chaugale said that while liver disease was very common in North Karnataka and KLES Hospital was successful in offering this expertise locally at an affordable cost.

Chairman of KLE Society Prabhakar Kore said that KLES Prabhakar Kore Hospital had established itself as a major multi-organ transplant centre in the region and more importantly it was the only “medical college affiliated hospital” in the State to perform multi-organ transplant surgeries. 

In all, 101 kidney transplants, 21 liver transplants, and 14 heart transplants had been performed at KLES Hospital till date. Recently it had embarked on doing bone marrow transplantation also, he said.

Mr. Kore said that as there are over 35 patients waiting for liver transplant, he would urge the family members and near ones of liver failure patients to voluntarily come forward and donate a part of their liver to save the lives of their loved ones.