Surgical closure of the abdominal wall of the boy who underwent a liver transplant due to mushroom poisoning. Tomek’s condition is good, the doctors from the Children’s Memorial Health Institute (CZD) in Międzylesie informed at the Tuesday press conference.
After the surgery, the child was returned to the intensive care unit. As after the previous operation, the boy will still be asleep for the next few hours. After determining that nothing is happening to the liver, we will try to disconnect it from the ventilator again – said Dr. Elżbieta Pietraszek-Jezierska, head of the postoperative department of the Polish Dental Practitioner.
On Tuesday, August 17, six-year-old Tomek underwent a liver transplant surgery, because his own was damaged due to poisoning with toadstool. He waited nine days for an organ transplant. The donor was a 25-year-old man who died in a road accident.
According to Dr. Paweł Nachulewicz, who performed both operations, the closure of the skin integuments was a planned procedure. During the liver transplantation operation, the abdominal wall was left open so that there was not too much pressure on the organ collected from an adult donor. We usually try to close them within a week, said the surgeon. He added that during this procedure a liver biopsy is also taken to assess its function.
It seems to us that this procedure will be sufficient, that we have not caused too much pressure, although sometimes we have to loosen the coatings. I hope that further tests will show that it is not necessary – noted the surgeon.
Dr. Pietraszek-Jezierska explained that it will only be possible to infer Tomek’s brain function after the boy has fully regained consciousness, and it is a slow process. Remember that the central nervous system was badly damaged during the few days that the boy was waiting for a liver transplant. It is now gradually returning to its functions, but we have not yet managed to fully establish contact with the child. All the reactions that we are currently observing are not conscious reactions – said the specialist.
According to her, rehabilitation will be required to restore full function of the central nervous system. We are not able to say how long this process will take. We can only observe the boy’s progress and work on further improvement of the brain function, explained Dr. Pietraszek-Jezierska.
Dr. Nachulewicz assured that the other three children who underwent organ transplants last week are fine. The boy who had had a liver transplant after Tomek will be able to go home within a few days – he explained. Patients after kidney transplantation also do well and their kidneys work independently.
The surgeon recalled that in Poland the waiting time for a child for a kidney transplant is about a year. However, when it comes to liver transplantation, the success of Polish medicine is that we have reduced the mortality rate among children awaiting transplantation to zero. We no longer record cases where children die while waiting for a liver transplant because they cannot obtain it. It was possible, among others thanks to the introduction of transplants from family donors and deceased donors – explained Dr. Nachulewicz.
According to the director of CZD Maciej Piróg, although the fight for Tomek’s health is not over, it can already be said that his case allowed the public to become aware of two important issues. First, that mushroom consumption is extremely dangerous and that children should not be given them at all. And secondly, that there are situations in which the only possible treatment is transplantation, said Piróg.
In his opinion, the example of six-year-old Tomek and the way in which the media reported his case will help many people who need a transplant – of the liver or other organ – is very much needed (PAP).