Father donates part of his liver to save seven-month-old son in Ukraine
Surgeons in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv have successfully transplanted part of a father's liver into his seven-month-old son, the youngest transplant recipient in the history of St. Nicholas Children's Hospital.
The hospital announced the operation on October 14, saying the baby, Davyd, is recovering well.
Davyd, from Ukraine's Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, was diagnosed with biliary atresia, a rare congenital condition in which blocked bile ducts cause progressive liver damage.
His parents first noticed something was wrong when he developed jaundice at three months old. Doctors eventually determined that a liver transplant was his only chance of survival.
His father, Roman, was a suitable donor, but the baby was initially too small to undergo the procedure.
Doctors spent more than three months trying to help him gain weight. Before surgery, Davyd weighed 9.5 kilograms (21 pounds), but only 6.2 kilograms (13.7 pounds) of that was his actual body weight. The rest was fluid buildup caused by complications of liver disease.
The operation was further complicated by the baby's hepatic artery, which measured barely 2 millimeters across.
Surgeons and medical staff from three institutions — St. Nicholas Children's Hospital, the Lviv Transplantation Center and Kyiv's Shalimov National Scientific Center of Surgery and Transplantation — worked together on the 12-hour procedure.
The transplanted portion of Roman's liver began functioning during the operation, and the hospital says the graft has successfully taken hold.
Davyd is now eight months old. His jaundice is fading, he is becoming more active and he is eating well.
“We trusted the doctors. We believed everything would be fine, that there was no other possibility, that our child had to live,” his parents said.
The hospital says Davyd now smiles at the doctors who saved his life during follow-up visits.