Malaysian doctors to receive pediatric liver transplant training in Shanghai

In June, the first batch of doctors from University of Malaya Medical Center will receive training in pediatric liver transplantation at Shanghai's Renji Hospital, according to a cooperation agreement signed between the two medical institutions on Wednesday.

A team from Renji will also travel to Malaysia, where they will provide technical support for related surgeries to their counterparts there.

Since 2014, the Malaysian medical center has sent children with congenital biliary atresia to Renji Hospital for certain types of liver transplant operations.

The incidence of congenital biliary atresia is one in every 10,000 births, although the rate is higher in many developing countries. Liver transplants are commonly used to treat this condition, yet many hospitals in Southeast Asia are not equipped to offer such operations, say doctors from Renji Hospital. The Shanghai-based hospital is one of the world's leaders in pediatric liver translation.

“Renji is the first hospital in the mainland to carry out children’s live liver transplants and we completed over 1,600 such transplant surgeries by last year, and the five-year survival is nearly 90 percent,” said Dr Wang Yu, vice president of Renji Hospital. “The cooperation between Renji and University of Malaya Medical Center can not only promote our technology but also help us gain more experiences in international patients service and management to improve our overall quality.”

Dr Ng Ruey Terng is one of the first batch of doctors set to join the training program. He was also involved in sending the first Malaysian child for a liver transplant at Renji in 2014.

“There was no chance to the girl to survive in our country, so we sent her to Renji for the surgery. She is now very healthy and is a grade-one student,” he said. “I am very happy to receive training in Shanghai and set up our own team in our hospital to save more children in our country.”

Ti Gong / Renji Hospital