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Paediatric Surgery and Transplant Unit
Information about the Centre
The Paediatric Surgery and Transplant Unit deals with all aspects of the medical and surgical management of a wide range of hepatobiliary pathologies in children. All the facilities required for the medical work-up of such conditions and diseases are available, including digestive endoscopy, therapy for oesophageal varices, specialised nutritional support, investigational radiology and appropriate anatomopathology support for interpretation of liver biopsy specimens.
Paediatric Surgery and Transplant Unit at the Saint-Luc University Hospital, led by Professor Raymond Reding has been offering a full range of surgery for hepatobiliary diseases in children for 25 years.
The Unit enjoys international partnerships with various overseas centres in Russia, Macedonia, Algeria and Vietnam among others.
Further information, including details of the Unit's scientific publications, is available at www.kidliver.org.
Activity
- Liver Transplant (total): 25-30 per year
- Living Donor Liver Transplant: 15-20 per year
- Hepatectomies and Shunt Surgery: 10-15 per year
- Over 700 paediatric liver transplants have been performed at the Unit since 1984.
Procedures Performed
Surgical procedures performed at our Unit include all types of paediatric liver surgery, including all types of partial hepatectomies, shunt surgery for portal hypertension, surgical procedures on the biliary tract (Kasai procedure, laparoscopic cholecystectomy, etc.), and liver transplants.
The three main procedures:
- Living Donor Liver Transplant
There is a possibility to perform liver transplant using a parental liver donor, provided this particular donor was fully assessed by our team to rule out any additional medical risk. The left liver lobe is procured from the living donor, and subsequently reimplanted in the recipient child after removal of his/her diseased liver.
Such operation provides excellent results in the recipient, with patient survival at 5 years beyond 90%, as recently published by our Centre.
- Partial Hepatectomy
When a malignant tumour is detected in the liver of a child (mostly hepatoblastoma or hepatocarcinoma), pre-operative chemotherapy is prescribed. Subsequently, partial hepatectomy can be performed in order to resect the tumour, which leaves the normal liver lobe in place. Depending on the anatomopathological diagnosis of the resected tumour, further chemotherapy may be administered to the child in the post-operative period.
- Meso-Rex Shunt
When a congenital thrombosis of the portal vein is discovered in a child, in the context of portal hypertension with occurrence of digestive bleeding, it is often possible to cure the situation by performing of a Meso-Rex Surgical Shunt.
This operation allows complete cure of the portal hypertension as well the revascularisation of the liver.
The Medical Team
The main feature of the Paediatric Surgery and Transplant Unit at the Saint-Luc University Hospital is the multidisciplinary medical team involved, including senior paediatric surgeons (two), paediatric hepato-gastroenterologists (two), paediatric radiologists (two), paediatric intensivists (three), and paediatric anaesthesiologists (two). This team is supported by specialist multilingual staff including a clinical transplant coordinator, nurses, a medical secretary and a social worker.
Raymond Reding, MD, PhD, is the head surgeon in charge of the Paediatric Surgery and Transplant Unit at the Saint-Luc University Hospital.
In 2000, he opened a specialist Paediatric Centre for anorectal pathology and surgery. He currently heads-up the Centre for Hepatobiliary Surgery for Children. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific international publications, mainly in the fields of paediatric surgery, liver transplant and transplants immunology.
He is member of the American Society of Transplantation and co-editor of the
journal Pediatric Transplantation.
Contact Details
Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc (UCL)
Avenue Hippocrate, 10
1200 Bruxelles