LAHORE: The Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI) is all set to conduct first time liver transplant operations of three patients under the ‘swap transplant programme’ here on Thursday (today).

It will place Pakistan on the list of the countries conducting swap transplant procedures.

Under the swap transplant policy, identities of recipients and donors are not shared. For today’ s procedure, two of the recipients are women whose donors are also women.

Headed by PKLI dean Prof Faisal Dar, a highly-trained team of the surgeons would perform liver transplants at the institute.

Chairman & programme director of liver transplant hepatobiliary & pancreatic surgery Dr Ihsanul Haq, and consultants Dr Sohail Rashid, Dr Yasir Khan and Dr Siraj Haider are also part of the team.

An official told Dawn on Wednesday the treating doctors had recommended liver transplant of all the three patients due to their end-stage condition.

During pre-transplant assessment, he said, it transpired that the blood groups of their close relatives did not match them. He said the PKLI surgeons had decided to process the cases under the swap transplant programme, a unique scheme to help the patients who were unable to find donors among their blood relations.

The Punjab Human Organ Transplant Authority (P-HOTA) had already given approval to the swap transplant plan to allow patients to have access to the organs from unrelated donors (outside blood relations) to stop organ trafficking.

They performed tests of close relatives/donors of all the three under-treatment patients requiring liver transplant. Clinical reports later matched the blood groups of all the three patients with the relatives of other patients under the swap programme, he said, adding that the PKLI sent the recommended cases to the P-HOTA.

The PKLI surgeons requested the authority to grant approval to the institute to conduct first swap transplant.

The P-HOTA assessed the request of the PKLI, brought the matter to the notice of Punjab Health Minister Prof Dr Yasmin Rashid who approved the requisition.

The official said the PKLI team of surgeons was all set to conduct first swap transplant scheduled for Thursday.

To a question, he said, the PKLI was on top in conducting organ transplant procedures in Punjab.

About the disease burden, he said there were approximately 10 million patients with hepatitis C and more than 5 million with hepatitis B in Pakistan, with a majority of them living in Punjab.

“A 2017 survey done in Punjab with the assistance of the Bureau of Statistics Punjab and the PKLI&RC revealed that prevalence in the province is estimated to be 8.9 percent of the total population, with rural prevalence at 9.3pc,” the official said. Approximately, 40pc of the diseases in Pakistan are related to kidney, liver and bladder problems, and only a handful of hospitals were specialized enough to deal with this challenge.

About the PKLI role, he said the team of surgeons under the supervision of Prof Dr Faisal Dar has so far performed 75 liver transplants, a highly sensitive and marathon procedure, with 97pc success rate.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2022