Nine-Year-Old Boy Goes Through Five Organ Transplants Due to Extremely Rare Genetic Condition

(Photo : Pexels / Vidal Balielo Jr.)

The five-organ transplant procedures come after the boy had been waiting nearly his entire life to find a match.

His extremely rare genetic condition necessitated him to receive five different organ transplants.

Extremely Rare Genetic Condition

Jakob Perez has a genetic condition known as microvillus inclusion disease (MVID). Due to this condition, his body is unable to execute proper food absorption.

The condition is usually apparent within days or hours postpartum. The disorder is marked by crucial nutrient malabsorption as well as severe, chronic, and watery diarrhea.

All over the world, less than 100 individuals live with this condition.

In Jakob's case, his nutrient supply was administered via IV. He also needed multiple organs transplanted.

For the body's entire life, his family had been waiting for a donor. This donor needed to be another young boy who was around the same size and age as Jakob.

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Five Organ Transplants

The family then received news from doctors one Monday afternoon that Jakob could get transplants from a deceased donor in just two days in Pittsburgh. The family then traveled to Pittsburgh for the procedure, and Jakob finally went through the five-organ transplantation procedure last June 26.

Joshua Perez, the father of Jakob, expresses how surreal it has been, as they have reached the point of being unsure if the surgery could even happen.

For Jakob's recovery, he has to stay in the hospital for two months and in Pittsburgh for three months after. This is for his further follow-up care.

The family stresses how important it is to be a donor, regardless of one's age. They show their great gratitude for this gift that saved Jakob's life.

Organ Donation

Organ donation is what allows a living or deceased person to give life to someone else. As part of the process, surgeons remove a good organ from a donor who does not need the organ and have the organ transferred to another person who needs it.

Organ donors are typically recently deceased individuals who volunteered before dying or whose family donated their organs on their behalf. As for organ recipients, they are typically individuals who face critical illness during organ failure end stages.

While organ donations and transplantation could be life-saving, not everyone who needs to undergo a transplant actually gets one in time. This is due to the immense scarcity of organs.

The organ donation need has heavily outweighed the supply. In the US, more than 100,000 individuals await a life-saving organ transplant each day. However, each year, only around 400,000 transplants take place.

In Jakob's rare case of MVID, he needed a new small intestine, large intestine, stomach, pancreas, and liver.