Mallika Mohandas, chairman, MIOT International, and the doctors of the hospital with the patient who underwent the procedure in Chennai on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: S.R. RAGHUNATHAN
Doctors of MIOT International treated a post-liver transplant patient with bile duct blockage using two tiny magnets in a technique called magnetic compression anastomosis (MCA) to restore bile flow.The patient, a 43-year-old woman from Kyrgyzstan, had undergone a living donor liver transplant in 2025. A year later, she developed itching and jaundice. At MIOT, evaluation found a complete bile duct blockage, preventing normal flow of bile from the liver. If left untreated, it could cause severe infection, sepsis, and failure of the transplanted liver.Karthik Mathivanan, programme director, Department of Liver and Multi-Organ Transplant and HPB Surgeon, said bile duct strictures occur in up to 42% of living donor liver transplant recipients. While most cases can be managed with endoscopic stenting or percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage, the patient’s bile duct was sealed completely. Despite multiple attempts, doctors were unable to cross the blockage or place a stent, a press release said.The aim was to avoid major repeat surgery as it would be a complex procedure, he said. They inserted an external biliary drainage catheter to allow the bile to drain outside the body. The multidisciplinary team, comprising the liver transplant team, interventional radiologists, therapeutic endoscopists, and anaesthesiologists, performed an MCA, a procedure used at a few centres in South Korea and Japan.In MCA, a gastroenterologist placed a magnet through an endoscope from inside the intestine, while an interventional radiologist introduced a second magnet through the existing drainage tract. The magnets are positioned on either side of the blocked bile duct. Over time, the magnets gently attract each other, with the magnetic force compressing the scar tissue between them.Karthikeyan Damodaran, Director, Vascular and Interventional Radiology said the position was checked through X-ray after a week. Two weeks later, there was no space between the magnets and the block was cleared. A stent was then placed to maintain bile flow.Mallika Mohandas, chairman, and Palaniappan S., senior medical gastroenterologist, hepatologist and interventional endoscopist, MIOT International, were present. Published - July 07, 2026 06:45 pm IST
