National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) doctors who performed the first successful adult liver transplant in Vietnam declared the operation a success at a news conference at NTUH yesterday.
Following an invitation from Hanoi's Viet Duc hospital, an 18-member NTUH team set off for Hanoi to operate on a patient who is suffering from cirrhosis as well as early-stage liver cancer.
The doctors said at yesterday's news conference that a 47-year-old woman, surnamed Nguyen, has recovered well since her operation two months ago.
PHOTO: CNA
"She is now out of the danger zone as far as post-operative infection is concerned," said Lee Po-huang (李伯皇), a surgeon at NTUH and the leader of the medical team that performed Nguyen's operation.
Liver transplants from a living donor have been successfully performed for more than a decade in Taiwan and are now considered a "routine procedure," with survival rates in excess of 90 percent, excluding patients who are afflicted with advanced kidney cancer, surgeon Hu Rey-heng (胡瑞恆) said, another member of the team.
Five previous liver transplants had been attempted in Vietnam, including one spearheaded by doctors from Taipei's Veterans' General Hospital, but none of the five patients, all children, had survived.
Operating outside of Taiwan presented challenges, the doctors said, because the operating rooms at the Viet Duc hospital were not equipped with high efficiency particulate air, or HEPA, filters, resulting in a slightly sub-optimal level of sterility in the room. The language barrier also caused minor misunderstandings between the doctors and the Vietnamese medical staff supporting them, they said.
Fortunately, no serious incidents occurred during the 11-hour operation, the doctors said.
Lee explained that the laws in Vietnam have yet to define brain death, so organ donation is only possible from live donors who choose to give up a portion of their liver or one of their two kidneys. In this case, Nguyen received a liver transplant from her nephew, who gave up 60 percent of his liver.
Nguyen Tien Quyet, director of the Viet Duc hospital, has been quoted in the Vietnamese state media as saying the hospital would continue to attempt more complicated surgery, such as heart transplants, in the wake of the success.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS