Guinness reviews PKLI records after 10 liver transplants in under 24 hours

LAHORE: Guinness World Records has asked the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute and Research Centre (PKLI&RC) to provide medical records after the institute said its 120-member surgical and support team carried out 10 liver transplant procedures in 23 hours and 20 minutes, including one for a nine-month-old child.

According to the institute, Guinness responded after PKLI&RC submitted its case online along with visual evidence. A Guinness official said a team is also expected to visit the hospital in connection with the claim.

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, PKLI&RC dean Prof Dr Faisal Saud Dar said the achievement marked a significant development in transplant medicine and reflected a new clinical approach aimed at increasing the use of donor organs and improving treatment options for rare metabolic diseases.

He said the multidisciplinary team included transplant surgeons, hepatologists, paediatricians, anaesthetists, intensivists, nurses, transplant coordinators and other allied healthcare professionals.

Prof Dar said the hospital completed seven domino liver transplants and eight Auxiliary Partial Orthotopic Liver Transplants (APOLT) during the coordinated programme.

Explaining the techniques, he said a domino liver transplant involves removing a healthy liver from one patient and transplanting it into a second recipient, while APOLT is a complex procedure in which part of a donor liver is implanted alongside a portion of the patient’s own liver.

He said the approach allowed nine children and one adult to undergo life-saving liver transplants using organs from only three donors.

At the briefing, Prof Dar said all 10 patients had been discharged and had returned to their families.

He said the programme brought together two advanced transplant methods — domino liver transplantation and APOLT — in a single coordinated clinical effort focused on patients with rare inherited metabolic disorders.

Prof Dar described the work as a scientific advance in the treatment of rare genetic and metabolic diseases, saying it could widen therapeutic options for patients who previously had limited choices.

He also said the successful cases reflected what transplant specialists call a metabolic chimera, a model of transplantation designed to combine scientific innovation, surgical precision and more effective use of donor organs to benefit multiple recipients from a single donation.

Speaking about the broader significance of the effort, he said the initiative showed how optimising organ use could help address donor shortages and improve access to life-saving transplants.

During the same event, Punjab Finance Minister Mian Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman congratulated the PKLI&RC team, saying the procedure set a new benchmark in liver transplantation and brought international recognition to Pakistan through healthcare excellence.

He said the rare procedure further strengthened PKLI&RC’s standing as a leading regional centre for transplantation, advanced clinical care and medical innovation.

PKLI&RC Board of Governors Chairman Prof Saeed Akhtar said the institute remained committed to providing patients with advanced and innovative treatment, adding that the hospital would continue using its full capacity to deliver world-class healthcare services.

He said that since its establishment, the institute has carried out 1,175 liver transplants, 1,276 kidney transplants and 19 bone marrow transplants for patients from across Pakistan and abroad.