A group Indian doctors lent a helping hand to their Pakistani counterparts to jointly perform a complicated liver transplant procedure for the first time in Pakistan.
The living donor liver transplantations (LDLT) were performed at Lahore's Shiekh Zayed Hospital on Friday by a team of Indian and Pakistani surgeons, officials said on Saturday.
"LDLTs are highly sensitive and complicated' surgical procedures as two lives – the donor and recipient – are at risk," doctors said.
The joint operations were done by Indian surgeon Subash Gupta, a senior transplant doctor of Apollo Hospital in Delhi, and three of his colleagues and the three-member Pakistani team of Tariq Bangash, Khawar Shahzad and Umer Ali.
"The joint venture of leading Indian and Pakistani transplant surgeons has made history by opening a new era of living-relative liver transplants in Pakistan," Bangish said.
The first liver transplant was performed on Khanum Maula and the liver was donated by his close relative Irshad Bibi.
The second surgery was conducted on 45-year-old Abida Parveen and the liver was donated by her 19-year-old son.
It took 12 hours for the surgeons to complete each sensitive procedure. Both recipients were brought to Shaikh Zayed Hospital with complete liver failures.
The Indian doctors visited Pakistan to perform the transplants at the request of the Pakistani surgeons.
Before the arrival of the Indian doctors, surgeons at Shaikh Zayed Hospital finalized arrangements for the sensitive operations and prepared the donors and recipients.
The condition of all the recipients and donors was stable and they were kept under observation in intensive care for 24 hours.
Consultants were put on high alert for post-operative care of the patients for 24 hours, a highly sensitive period for all who undergo hours-long surgeries.