Surgeons overcame several obstacles to successfully complete an organ transplant surgery for a three-year-old with inherited kidney disease, Taipei Veterans’ General Hospital said yesterday.
The patient, a girl surnamed Hsu (許), was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease, a rare genetic disorder, at birth, the hospital told a news conference.
She has taken medication and had dialysis daily since she was two, and the condition limited her growth, it said, adding that at 86.3cm and 11.5kg, she is shorter and lighter than most other children her age.
Photo: CNA
Pediatric Surgery Division director Tsai Hsin-lin (蔡昕霖) said that most children who need a kidney transplant have inherited urinary system abnormalities, glomerulonephritis, acute kidney damage or other genetic disorders.
However, dialysis can cause delays in physical and neurocognitive development in young children, Tsai said.
As their bodies are so small, surgery on the urinary system of children with chronic kidney disease is more complicated, but if they do not get a kidney transplant before adulthood, the stunting of their growth might worsen, leading to learning disabilities, uremia, anemia, or even acute stroke or heart attack, he said.
Getting a transplant is a race against time, he added.
Another issue is that most kidney donors are adults, Tsai said.
After waiting a year for a compatible kidney from a donor who weighed 57kg, the big challenge for the surgical team was how to implant a 12cm-long kidney into Hsu’s abdominal cavity, which was only about 20cm long, he said, adding that the organ they removed was 8cm long.
The team had to precisely calculate the dimensions of Hsu’s abdominal cavity and the operation took seven hours, he said.
The surgeons removed the damaged kidney, moved her large intestine and duodenum to the left to make room for the donor kidney and connected blood vessels to it to prevent tubular necrosis, he said.
The team also reported the successful cases of a nine-year-old child, surnamed Chen (陳) and four other kidney transplants involving children since August 2020.
Pediatric Division director Chang Jei-wen (張瑞文) said that a kidney transplant is the best treatment for children with end-stage renal disease, as it not only has the best prognosis, but can also allow a young patient’s physical and cognitive growth to catch up with children of the same age.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS