BR Life Kalinga Hospital performs first TIPS for Liver Cirrhosis

Bhubaneswar: BR Life Kalinga Hospital, a leading healthcare unit in Bhubaneswar, has performed the first-ever Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt (TIPS) in Odisha on a 46-year-old patient to treat chronic cirrhotic liver.

Subroto Das (name changed) a known case of chronic alcoholic Liver Cirrhosis, complained of jaundice, bloating of stomach and vomiting blood. Upon investigation, he was diagnosed to have 3 liters of liquid accumulated in his abdomen.

Prior to visiting BR Life Kalinga Hospital, Subroto had been under consultation and treatment and had removed the accumulated liquid twice from his stomach. However, it kept recurring and deteriorating his health further. 

Since traditional treatment methods did not help improve Subroto’s condition, Dr. Sibasankar Dalai, Senior Visiting Consultant – Vascular and Interventional Radiologist, BR Life Kalinga Hospital and Dr. Sanghamitra Mishra, HOD – department of Anesthesia, BR Life Kalinga Hospital performed TIPS (Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt) surgery.

Speaking about the treatment, Dr. Sibasankar Dala said, “Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt (TIPS) is a procedure that is used to reduce portal hypertension and its complications, especially variceal bleeding. In this procedure, we placed small wire-mesh coil (stent) into the liver vein. The stent was then expanded using a small inflatable balloon (angioplasty).

The stent forms a channel that bypasses the liver. This channel reduces pressure in the portal vein and by reducing portal hypertension, enlarged veins (varices) are less likely to rupture and bleed. With this, we also removed three liters of fluid that was accumulated in the abdomen.”

Liver cirrhosis is a disease that occurs when there is an irreversible scarring of the liver and a permanent loss of liver cells. It is becoming more common with close to 10 lakh new patients being diagnosed with liver cirrhosis every year in India.

The primary causes of the disease included Hepatitis B and C earlier but now, it is primarily due to alcohol abuse and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. This has led the country to witness a paradigm shift in the dynamics of this disease as it is now on the verge of becoming one of the most common lifestyle diseases.

Subroto, an alcoholic for the past 10-15 years, got a stiffness of liver that resulted in stopping of blood flow into the liver. 

This developed backpressure into the spleen Vein (a blood vessel that provides blood to the liver from spleen) and the digestive system resulting in the leak of fluid from the blood that further got accumulated in the abdomen.