A 47-year-old police officer in north China's Shanxi Province remains on the job five years after his lifesaving kidney-liver transplant, becoming Asia's longest survivor of the dual organ transplant operation in Asia.
Jia huimin returned to his job two years ago, some three years after receiving a new liver and kidney.
Suffering from cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure, Jia entered the People's Hospital in Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi on Sep. 28, 2000 to undergo the dual organ transplant operation.
"It is extremely difficult to transplant two organs simultaneously," said Feng Bianxi, the chief surgeon who performed the operation. He says there can be many complications and many favorable factors have to be in place for the operation to be successful.
Currently, the patient's normal functions have been restored and he continues to work as a member of the local police department.
The world's first liver kidney transplant operation was carried out in the United States in 1983 and only a few countries have conducted such surgeries successfully.
The world's longest survival patient has lived 10 years.
(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2005)
