KARACHI, Nov 10: Surgeons of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) are gearing up to carry out the first liver transplant operation in the country.
The transplant will be undertaken in collaboration with a British institution, a senior spokesman for SIUT told Dawn on Monday. He said the date for the operation was yet to be fixed.
A couple of patients had already been admitted to the hospital for this purpose. The first recipient was likely to be a child, said the source.
The only definitive treatment for end stage liver disease was transplant, he added. This disease is found frequently among alcoholics and those having Hepatitis B, C or D.
“So, SIUT is soon going to give the people of Pakistan another breakthrough as it takes the first step towards the treatment of Cirrhosis and Hepatitis.”
Renal transplantation was undertaken for the first time at the SIUT in 1985. The institute had carried out at least 1,000 kidney transplants by early 2002. Three transplant surgeries are carried out every week and, according to the SIUT, its success rate is comparable to any other leading transplant centre in the world.
Liver transplantation too is largely going to be done free at the SIUT. The cost of liver transplantation in the US is about $250,000 for non-residents, which is out of reach for most Pakistanis.
The procedure is not being performed in Pakistan though a number of Asian countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, have their own liver transplant programmes. According to the Asian Transplant Registry 1997 data, nine countries of the region are performing this kind of transplantation.
The total number of transplants carried out in 1997 was 332, of which 176 involved living donors while the rest had cadaver donors.
Meanwhile, under the SIUT’s expansion plans an oncology centre is being built at a site across the road from its new building. The new centre, to be completed at a cost of Rs300 million, would be ready by the first half of 2005, said a source.
The funds for the project had been provided by a philanthropist. The building housing the SIUT’s oncology wing will be a seven-storey structure having a total covered area of 7,000 square feet, he said.
The building would be linked to the SIUT’s main building through two bridges. The centre will be equipped to deal with all cases of urological oncology. “It will have operation theatres and also an academic division.”
The oncology wing would be equipped with equipment needed for Brachytherapy — a technique to treat prostrate cancer. Linear accelerators would also be acquired for the centre.
The institute has also acquired a plot of land measuring 100 acres in Kathor, 40km from Karachi. There, an institute of health sciences is proposed to be built, according to a SIUT brochure.
