New Delhi, Apr 12 (IANS): Doctors at a private hospital here successfully conducted a challenging auto liver transplant on a 35-year-old female patient from Kyrgyzstan, whose liver was damaged due to a rare parasitic infection.

About 75 per cent of her liver was damaged, and doctors at Fortis Escorts, Okhla, replaced the patient's damaged liver portion with a healthy part of her own liver in a surgery that lasted for eight hours.

This is the second case of auto liver transplant performed in India, and the first in the north, the hospital said in a statement on Wednesday.

The patient was suffering from abdominal pain for the past three months. She was diagnosed with a parasitic infection, called Echinococcosis Multilocularis which affects the liver as a slow-growing tumour with subsequent damage to the organ.

A CT scan was done which confirmed the presence of the infection and showed acute liver failure. In view of the extensive damage caused to the liver and the surrounding organs, the doctors decided to conduct an auto liver transplant.

"During the surgery, we removed the damaged part of the liver and successfully replaced it with a normal part of the liver. Postoperatively, the patient had a fast recovery and was discharged on the eighth day of surgery in a stable condition without any immunosuppressant medicines, which is usually required after organ transplantation," Vivek Vij, Chairman - Liver Transplant, Fortis Escorts, said in the statement.

"The dissection for removal of the diseased liver part was quite challenging, as there was a risk of injury to other vital surrounding organs along with risk of bleeding, he said.

Echinococcosis Multilocularis is a rare health condition and has about 10 per cent chances of reoccurrence. If not treated on time and correctly, the infection might affect the lungs, kidney, large blood vessels, and intestines of the patient.

In the majority of the reported cases for Echinococcosis Multilocularis, liver transplant is adopted to cure the patient.

"However, in this particular case, we opted for a novel technique - auto liver transplant, where the damaged part of the liver was removed and replaced by a healthy part of the liver. Utilising a part of the patient's own liver is a boon as immunosuppressive medicines are not required," Vij said.