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From: metspitzer on 24 Sep 2008 13:04
By Kate Sikora
September 24, 2008 12:00am

IT costs as little as $2 and until now has been considered little more
than a toy, but a simple ping-pong ball is keeping liver transplant
patient Mackenzie Argaet alive.

In a world first, a Sydney surgeon has used the radical method in a
transplant operation, which has won him international accolades.

Dr Albert Shun, from The Children's Hospital at Westmead, used the
unorthodox approach when confronted with a medical problem while
operating on the two-year-old.

Born with biliary artresia, Mackenzie, from Canberra, needed the
life-saving operation earlier this year.

But after inserting a portion of the adult-size liver in the little
girl, Dr Shun discovered it was too big and was placing pressure on
her blood vessels which could have been fatal.

Having heard about the use of ping-pong balls in operations overseas,
he decided to test their suitability in transplant surgery.

"I rang my wife and asked her to go to Big W and buy me some ping-pong
balls," he said.

"I was using a sponge as a back-up purpose but there was no way I
could close her up the way it was.

"She is the first (transplant patient) in the world that the
ping-pongs have been used for these purposes."

In Mackenzie's case, the ball keeps the liver off the arteries. Since
Mackenzie's operation, Dr Shun and his team have performed the
procedure several times.

However, the ball has only remained in the patients for a few days to
allow the swelling to reduce after the transplant.

Dr Shun said Mackenzie's liver would grow around the ball without
causing an infection.

"There shouldn't be any complications. We are in a unique situation in
Australia because we have a low donor rate so we have to be
adaptable," he said.

Unaware she has a foreign object inside her body, little Mackenzie is
now running around like every toddler her age.

Her parents Letice Darswell and Guy Argaet are thrilled their daughter
is well after she was so seriously ill from birth.

"We didn't get told about the ping-pong until after the operation," Ms
Darswell said.

"It was a shock when (Dr Shun) came out of surgery."

Biliary artresia is a rare gastro-intestinal disorder in newborns
where the ducts that carry bile from the liver to the intestine are
destroyed. Mackenzie's liver became so scarred that she began to
develop cirrhosis and needed a transplant.

"She is so normal now. She is a happy kid," Ms Darswell said.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24393387-5006009,00.html
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