Apollo Hospitals

Our department deals with diseases arising from food pipe, stomach, intestine, liver, gall bladder, bile duct and pancreas. Gastroenterology / Hepatology patients visiting our hospital falls into three major categories.

Please contact us if you have severe diarrhea / vomiting with or without blood, deep jaundice with or without drowsiness, severe abdominal pain with or without fever, inability to swallow, ingestion of acid / alkali or a foreign body

We have fully equipped 12 bedded emergency department which are backed up by a state of the art critical care unit. All these patients are seen promptly by senior doctors investigated and treated. Our critical care unit has three full time intensivist and twelve registrars (M.D.). All emergency services are available round the clock. We have our own state of the art blood bank with facility for component transfusion.

To assess and investigate such patients, we have an excellence back up of various departments like radiology (with facility for CT scanning , MRI Interventional radiology ), nuclear medicine, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology, immunology etc.

We have recently successfully diagnosed and treated several such patients whose diseases were undiagnosed for years. (Tuberculosis, Crohn’s disease, anemia, wheat allergy, cirrhosis of liver etc).

We are runnig “Liver Clinic” at Apollo Hospitals City Centre on each Friday evening. This is a one step comprehensive clinic for patients with various liver diseases as a subsidized cost. We also screen people who are at high risk for developing liver disease (people who are diabetic and obese, regular alcohol consumers, sufferers of hepatitis B & C and those with family history of liver disease).

We provide preventive diagnostic endoscopy services to patients who are at high risk of developing Gastrointestinal cancer for various reason like chronic tobacco chewing, smoking or chronic alcohol consumption and people with strong family history of gastro intestinal cancers.

We are running a dedicated “Diarrhea / Constipation Clinic” at Apollo City Centre on a Tuesday evening. The aim is to provide comprehensive care to patients who are suffering form intestinal tuberculosis, chronic diarrhea, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, colon cancer, bleeding from back passage chronic constipation and anorectal problems etc.

For those patients who require gastro intestinal or liver surgery for various indications, we have two excellent senior surgeons to operate on such patients. Majority of the surgical procedures are done laproscopically at our centre.

Serious / Complicated cases are seen jointly by medical and surgical gastroenterology consultant & intensivist on the day to day basis.

Acute fulminant hepatic failure is also an indication for transplant in selected cases.

In cadaveric liver transplantation, the donor may be a victim of an accident or head injury. The donor’s heart is still beating but the brain has stopped functioning. Such a person is considered legally dead, because his or her brain has permanently and irreversibly stopped working. The heart continues to beat because the donor is attached to a respirator. The respirator delivers an adequate supply of oxygen to all vital organs. At this point, the donor is in an intensive care unit.

If a patient becomes an active liver transplant candidate, his name will be placed on a waiting list. Patients are listed according to blood group, body size, and medical condition (how ill they are). Each patient is given a priority score based on three simple blood tests (creatinine, bilirubin, and INR). The score is known as the MELD (model of end-stage liver disease) score in adults and PELD (pediatric end-stage liver disease) in children. Patients with the highest scores are transplanted first. As they become more ill, their scores will increase and therefore their priority for transplant increases, allowing for the sickest patients to be transplanted first. A small group of patients who are critically ill from acute liver disease have the highest priority on the waiting list.

What is the success rate? 1 year survival of 80-90% and 4 yr survival of 75-80% is well established. What is the average stay in the hospital?

After transplantation average hospital stay is about 3 weeks. This varies depending on the condition of the patient at the time of transplant, extent of portal hypertension, extent of coagulopathy and occurrence of the infective complication.

After initial three months most of the patients get back to their routine activity. They need precautions and immunosuppression as for any other transplant patient. Liver is an immune privileged organ and needs less immonosuppression.