In December 2013, surgeons at the Lili Valley Clinic Foundation in Cali, Colombia, performed a transformational procedure: They successfully transplanted a living lobe of liver. This procedure was the first of its kind in Latin America.
The patient in need of the liver was six months old, and surgeons Mr Luis Armando Caicedo and Mr Gabriel Jaime Echeverry needed assurance that the donated organ would be viable once the transplant had been completed. The medical team used the Doppler Blood Flow Monitoring System, from Cook, to get blood flow readings during a 48-hour period after the procedure.
The continuous monitoring gave the team the ability to act quickly in case of any disruptions in blood flow to the transplanted organ.
“We’re in this business to give better outcomes to patients,” said Leigh-Ann Cochran, global product manager for the Doppler Blood Flow Monitoring System. “News like this reminds us that what we do really makes a difference.”