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.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS