A rare feat in the world of transplantation sciences in the country was accomplished by Dr Pranjal Modi and his team from the GR Doshi and KM Mehta Institute of Kidney Diseases & Research Centre and Dr HL Trivedi Institute of Transplantation Sciences (IKDRC-ITS). Modi and his team successfully transplanted the liver from a deceased 'heart-dead' donor. In most transplantation surgery, body parts are taken from 'brain dead' people whose heart is still beating.

IKDRC has performed about 17 liver transplants till now, in which all the organs have been obtained from cadavers. For this liver transplant, the organ was obtained from Kantaben Shah, 76, wife of a businessman from Ahmedabad, and patient of IKDRC alumni Dr Apoorva Parekh. Diabetes had damaged her kidney for the last 20 years, Shah became unconscious on May 3 and was admitted to Sterling Hospital where a CT scan revealed irreversible brain haemorrhage.

Dr Sudhir Shah, neurologist, diagnosed that her brain was severely damaged and chances of her recovery were nil. However, she was not brain dead by medico-legal definition, that is, her brain had not permanently stopped functioning and so her body could not be used for organ donation at that time.

However, the Shah family was inclined towards social service and, on the suggestion from the patient's daughter-in-law Pragnya, author of a book written in Gujarati, 'Cancer- maara sakha', the family decided to donate the patient's organs. "The liver was found to be good. Her liver was given to Dilip Patel, a 55-year-old farmer from Thaltej, Ahmedabad, who had lost his liver to alcoholic cirrhosis and was on our waiting list for the past few months," said Modi.

Dr Modi, chief surgeon during the operation, said: "Our team clearly explained to the Shah family that if Kantaben remained in hypotension, with BP less than 50 mm mercury, vital organs like kidney and liver could suffer and hence become unusable. The entire family was more than co-operative."

Eventually when the patient's heartbeats stopped at 4:30 pm on May 5, an emergency operation to remove her liver was conducted by Dr Modi and his team.