Prof. Dr. Mohamed Rela is a renowned world-class pediatric surgeon specialized in liver transplant. He is currently the director and chairman of Institute of Liver Disease and Transplantation Global Hospital Group, India. In the year 2000, his name was written in Guinness Book of World Records when he became the first surgeon to successfully perform a liver transplant in a 5-day old baby. Dr. Rela was born in a village called Kiliyanur in Tamil Nadu. He did his MBBS and MS from Chennai. He got another MS degree from Edinburgh, U.K. In 1988 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He also chairs The Pediatric Committee for the International Liver Transplantation Society. In Global Hospitals Chennai he is the chief surgeon and head of HPB and Liver Transplant Surgery. He has many achievements that take him in the list of top 20 living surgeons of the world. Some of his rewards are as follows- 1. In December 1997 in his leadership, a team successfully performed liver transplantation of a five-day-old baby girl which earned his place in the Guinness Book of World Records (2000).
- In March 1999 he performed first living liver transplantation in U.K.
- In June 2003 he performed the liver transplantation of a four and half-year-old Ahmadabad girl named PranaliBhat.
- In August 2003 his team performed six times liver transplantation of a lady patient who was having a bone marrow transplant.
- In August 2004 his team successfully transplanted the liver of a Pakistani citizen at Global Hospital.
- In September 2009 his team successfully done the first split liver transplantation in India.
- In May 2011 at Global Hospital, Chennai his team performed India’s first Swap liver transplantation of adults.
In India, Dr. Rela performs about 250 liver transplantation each year. He has done more than 4000 liver transplantation in his career that makes him the most experienced liver transplant surgeon in the world. India has a large number of liver patients especially suffering from hepatitis B and C. We are having a good number of fatty liver patients in India. But the liver transplantation treatment has got popularity in recent times only, especially living liver transplantation. In the recent future, there will be a huge increase in numbers of liver transplantation in India. We need proper qualified and trained doctors and hospitals with adequate facilities. In countries like India, there are some challenges to face. The cost of a liver transplantation in India is about 20lakhs. This charge is too much for a common Indian. Indian Govt. has to take some steps to make it convenient for the common people. Another problem we face is the shortage of deceased donors. In south India, there is an increasing trend in deceased donors, but rest of India is lagging behind. We need to educate people to increase the number of deceased donors in India. Future is good for India. There are new medicines available in Europe that can cure hepatitis B and C totally. About 30% of Indian liver patients will not need any transplantation.