Shanghai Medical Team Brings Hope to Critically Ill Children in Xinjiang

Supported by the Guangju Shan'ai Pediatric Liver Transplantation Special Fund, a charity fund at Ruijin Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, the medical team led by Shi Yanjun, director of the Abdominal Organ Transplantation Center, has opened a green channel for treating critically ill children from far away, and over the past three years has successfully performed living-donor liver transplants for 13 children of various ethnic groups from Xinjiang. Nine-month-old Xiaosaina was the first ethnic minority child supported by the fund. Diagnosed with congenital biliary atresia at two months of age, she already had liver failure with cirrhosis, a massively enlarged liver and spleen and heavy ascites on admission.

The team harvested a 230-gram extended left lateral lobe graft from her father and completed the transplant successfully. The team has lowered the lowest patient body weight it has treated from 5.8 kg to 5.6 kg, successfully treated an infant aged only 5 months and 4 days, and performed living-donor liver transplantation across the Rh blood group system. Over three years the project has received 1 million yuan in targeted donations, and in early 2025 Academician Ning Guang donated the full 200,000 Hong Kong dollars of his Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize money to the fund.