New Delhi: Celebrating one of India’s key medical triumphs, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday felicitated the country’s first successful liver transplant recipient, Sanjay Kandasamy from Tamil Nadu, who had undergone the procedure here in November 1998 when he was 18 months old at Apollo Hospital here.
“It is wonderful to see how the young infant in dire need of a transplant is today a healthy young man who himself wants to become a doctor.
It is a testament not only on India's medical acumen but also of the tenacity of this young man,” Sonia Gandhi said as she interacted with Sanjay and his family on the 15th anniversary of liver transplantation in India.
Sanjay was born with a rare condition called Biliary Atresia, which is seen in one out of 12,000 babies. “This is a condition in which there is no connection between the liver and the intestine so the bile produced in the liver cannot be excreted and therefore damages the liver,” said Dr Anupam Sibal, group medical director and senior paediatric gastroenterologist from Apollo Hospital where Sanjay had undergone the transplant.
These babies develop jaundice a few days after birth and the jaundice progressively increases. An operation to create the bile flow, if performed before the age of 2 months, can prevent liver failure.
Unfortunately in India, most babies with biliary atresia are diagnosed after the age of three months making this operation unsuccessful. This happened in Sanjay’s case, Sibal said.
Since his condition was deteriorating because of liver failure, his family decided to come to Delhi and his father donated a part of his liver to give him a new lease of life.
Sanjay became the first child to have had a liver transplant in India on 15th November 1998. He now leads a normal life, goes to school like other kids, enjoys meals, plays football and wants to become a doctor to save lives.
