KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 1 — A multidisciplinary team at Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (PPUM) has made Malaysian medical history after successfully performing a liver transplant on a four-month-old baby boy weighing just 6.2kg, the youngest and lightest recipient recorded in the country.
The high-risk procedure was carried out on November 25 after the infant developed fulminant liver failure of unknown cause, leaving transplantation as the only option to save his life, PPUM wrote in a statement.
“This case was indeed challenging not only because of the patient’s size, but also due to the cardiac complications that occurred just before the surgery,” said consultant hepatobiliary surgeon Associate Professor Dr Koh Peng Soon.
“It proves that with strong teamwork and swift clinical decision-making, we are able to do our best for the patient’s life,” he added.
The baby was initially treated at Hospital Muar before being urgently referred to PPUM when his condition deteriorated rapidly.
His 38-year-old mother, a Vietnamese national and mother of five, volunteered as a living donor to give her youngest child a second chance at life.
On the day of surgery, the infant collapsed in the paediatric intensive care unit, prompting the immediate halt of the donor operation while doctors carried out more than an hour of aggressive resuscitation.
The transplant proceeded only after the baby was stabilised.
The transplant was considered exceptionally complex because of the baby’s very young age, tiny body size and critical pre‑surgery condition.
Surgeons had to operate on a 6.2kg infant whose organs and blood vessels were extremely delicate, while also managing sudden cardiac collapse just before the procedure.
These factors, combined with the technical challenges of matching and implanting a partial liver from a living donor, made the case one of the most demanding paediatric liver operations ever attempted in Malaysia.
The procedure involved close collaboration between paediatric intensive care, paediatric gastroenterology and hepatology, hepatopancreatobiliary surgery, paediatric surgery, plastic surgery, radiology and nursing teams.
PPUM said financial assistance from the CCEP Foundation helped ease the burden on the family and ensured the life-saving treatment could be carried out without financial barriers.
The success highlights Malaysia’s capability in managing highly complex paediatric organ transplants and sets a new benchmark for the nation’s medical expertise.
