A surgical medical team at King Abdullah Specialist Children's Hospital In King Abdulaziz Medical City - Riyadh has successfully performed a liver and kidney transplant surgery on a 3 years old girl; her father donated a part of his liver and a kidney. This surgery marks the 8th of its kind after 7 surgeries for adults.
This was considered a complex case and can only be performed in large centers because it’s difficult to find suitable donors due to the age and weight. It is common to conduct such surgeries (liver and kidney transplant) in King Abdulaziz Medical City - Riyadh on an average age of sixty years old.
Consultant Dr. Khalid Omer Abdullah, Chairman of Hepatobiliary Sciences In King Abdulaziz Medical City – Riyadh pointed out that the initial tests showed that both the father and his daughter’s health conditions are stable, in addition to the need to perform both surgeries at once. Therefore, her father decided to donate a part of his liver in addition to one of his kidneys. After that, the possibility of this performing such surgery was confirmed after ensuring the safety of both the patient and the donor.
Furthermore, Dr. Khalid noted that a multidisciplinary team was assembled and medical integrated coordination between the two teams was ensured, the donor team and the patient team.
For his part, Dr. Wael Abdulaziz Ohali explained that the greater the weight of the child, the “relatively” easier the surgery, stressing on the point that it is rare both locally and globally to perform a two organ transplant surgeries; preferably in such cases, both the patient and the donor are relatives which will raise the odds of success in all areas.
In addition, Dr. Wael said the little girl was suffering from both kidney and liver failure and was under Hemodialysis. After evaluating her case, we found out the extreme importance of performing a 2 organ transplant surgery wich lasted 10 hours over several phases: first, the liver transplant and then the kidney transplant which directly began to function normally. After that, both the father and his daughter were moved to the Intensive Care Unit.