PUNE: Nirmal Sharma (61) of Pune is probably the first patient in the country to have undergone a liver-cum-kidney transplant from live donors. The surgery was performed on her at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi in September.

Addressing a news conference here on Thursday, Dr A.S.

Dr Soin then decided to go ahead with a simultaneous liver and kidney transplant. "The combined transplant on a 61-year-old with double organ failure was a big challenge," he recalls. In addition, he would have to remove half a liver and a kidney from separate live donors - in Sharma's case, her husband and nephew.

The surgery on September 11 took a record 15 hours, with a 50-member team performing three operations in separate operation theatres simultaneously. Sharma was released from hospital in two weeks after the surgery. However, since it requires at least two months to assess the success of a liver transplant, the hospital decided to speak to the media about its feat only recently.

Speaking about the rarity of the surgery, Dr Soin said a similar operation was done by the hospital on a child with liver enzyme defect. However, the child only had kidney failure, not liver failure.

Back home, Sharma said she had lost all hopes of survival as she could not eat, sleep, talk or walk after her liver and kidneys had failed. "All I had then wished for was death. Today, however, there is no one as hale and hearty as me," she remarked.

Her husband, V.K. Sharma, said initially he had decided to donate his liver to Nirmal. However, since his liver was not acceptable, he decided to donate a kidney and got a more suitable liver from his nephew. The surgery cost the Sharmas a whopping Rs 22 lakh but the cost was borne by the Ex-Servicemen's Health Scheme.

Nirmal will now have to be on medication for the rest of her life to beat the tendency of the body to reject a foreign organ inside it, explained Dr Soin. However, the medicine intake will reduce gradually, and she will only have to be on one or two pills a day at the most, he said. He stated that while the post-surgery

maintenance was costing Nirmal Rs 8,000 per month at present, it would come down to Rs 3,000 eventually.