No recipient found, cadaver liver ‘wasted’ again in Pune

Barely had the team of Ruby Hall Clinic patted itself on the back for its first successful cadaver liver transplant, they faced the prospect of losing yet another cadaver liver due to lack of a recipients’ registry.

While it is believed that the demand far outstrips supply in organ donation, for the third time in a fortnight, a cadaver liver donor was available, but the viable organ was ‘wasted’ due to lack of a recipient.

On February 7, a 22-year-old man from Shirur met with a road accident and sustained severe head injuries. He was shifted to Ruby Hall Clinic. Despite several efforts by neurosurgeon Dr Sanjay Vhora and intensivist Dr Kapil Zirpe, he couldn’t be saved and was declared brain-dead.

The family was counselled by medical social workers. They agreed to donate the kidneys, corneas and liver. On February 8, the hospital started looking for a liver recipient who had AB blood group.

“First of all, the blood group is the second rarest group with only 5% of the population having it. Secondly, despite our best efforts to raise awareness, we don’t have a recipients’ registry for liver donations. It was not hard to look for kidney recipients since we have a long waiting list of patients who had kidney failure and are on dialysis. We have done their screening, work-up and whenever there is an organ available, all we have to do is cross-check for matching recipient,” said Zirpe.

However, the same case doesn’t apply to liver transplants. Despite being the certified centre for liver transplants, the hospital doesn’t have more than a couple of patients waiting to get liver transplant, confirmed chief executive officer of Ruby Hall Clinic, Bomi Bhote. In the third week of January too, two cadaver livers were ‘wasted’ (one donor from Command Hospital and another at Ruby Hall Clinic) for lack of a recipient.

Liver transplant surgeon Dr Harshal Rajekar said the hospital checked hospitals in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai for a recipient, but couldn’t get a patient with the same blood group.

“We need a central registry of recipients just as in Western countries. In the US for example, they have a zone-wise registry available. As soon as a donor is available, the hospital just contacts this registry, which finds a matching recipient,” he said.