In a rare surgery, a 26-year-old man saved his father’s life by donating a portion of his liver in spite of having a different blood group. According to doctors, 50-year-old Andrew was diagnosed with liver damage due to poor food habits and the only option left for the patient was liver transplant. Though his son Aaron was willing to donate his liver, the difference between their blood groups made it difficult.
For such a rare transplant, the doctors at the Jaypee Hospital successfully performed an AOB incompatible liver transplant on the patient. Experts said that till date people used to rely only on matching blood groups or cadaver donors, but now with the AOB incompatible technique, lives of hundreds of patients can be saved. The transplant was performed by hospital’s liver transplant surgeons, Dr Abhideep Chaudhary and Dr K.R. Vasudevan.
“Success of this operation has given hope to people around the world who are fighting to save their lives just because they are unable to find a donor whose blood group matches theirs. Two-three weeks after the operation, the line of treatment and the medicines are similar to those patients who have undergone a normal compatible transplant,” said Dr Vasudevan.
Under the AOB incompatible transplantation, a simple blood test is performed first to determine the amount of antibodies in the blood stream. Most people have a level of antibodies that is treatable.
Explaining the procedure, the doctors said that following that there is a treatment done to reduce the blood group antibodies of the organ receiver. Once it is done, antibodies of the blood group of the receiver are removed using a process of plasma exchange. Then finally, the task of removing the cells that make more of antibodies in the blood group is done.
