Adara (which means beauty in Greek) left the hospital last Wednesday, April 2. She is doing well, but must remain in the United States for a few more months for follow-up care before returning to her home in Panama City, Panama.

Adara needed to the life-saving liver transplant, because she had a disease called biliary atresia, a condition that results from the absence of bile ducts. This caused toxins that would normally pass through her body to pollute her body, which made her very sick. She then developed cirrhosis in her liver. Adara had surgery shortly after birth in Panama, but operations there did not fix her problems and she came away with further infections.

Adara's family and friends worked tirelessly to raise funds to bring the baby to America. Upon arrival on December 12, Adara's parents found, after medical evaluation, that Adara was too small and too sick to have the transplant she needed. Under the direction of Dr. Maureen Jonas, Medical Director of Liver Transplantation at Children's, nurses and physicians worked diligently for three months to improve Adara's condition enough to weather the transplant. Finally, on March 11, 2003, the Lahey and Children's Liver Transplant Teams collaboratively performed a nine-hour, live-donor liver transplant, giving Adara the gift she had been waiting for from her mother, a liver lobe that would replace her own destroyed liver.

Adara's blood vessels were extremely small (portal vein was 3 millimeters, hepatic artery was 1 millimeter). It took two of Children's pediatric transplant surgeons, Drs. Craig Lillehei and Heung Bae Kim, and Dr. Pompaselli nine hours to remove her damaged liver and replace it with a small piece of liver donated by her mother. Drs. Elizabeth Pomfrit and Roger Jenkins of the Lahey Team performed a simultaneous and equally challenging operation on Adara's mother to prepare an adequate piece of liver for transplantation. The entire team was concerned and cautious due to Adara's tiny blood vessels that were considerably smaller than her mother's.

''This was an extremely small infant for a liver transplant that took five surgeons to get the job done,'' said Pompaselli. Today, mother and baby are doing well and are recovering at home locally. They will hopefully be able to return to Panama City in three or four months. According to her proud father, Adara is smiling and moving around in her crib, things she was unable to do before her surgery.

''We thank God and the entire surgical team at Lahey and Children's for keeping our baby alive,'' said Rodolfo and Martha Henriquez. ''We know it was a very big effort and difficult procedure, because of Adara's physical condition, her size and the state of her disease. Since the beginning, they have all made us feel like family and have inspired us with confidence in their abilities.''

Press is invited to meet Adara and talk with her parents and physicians.

• When: 10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m., Monday, April 7, 2003
• Where: Fegan Building, Floor 3, Children's Hospital Boston 300 Longwood Ave., Boston, Mass.
• Who: Adara's parents: Rodolfo and Martha Lucia Henriquez
  Maternal grandmother: Fanny Maria Sandoval
  Paternal grandmother: Rosa De Henriquez
  Heung Bae Kim, MD, Assistant in Surgery, Children's
  Craig W. Lillehei, MD, Senior Associate in Surgery, Children's
  Maureen M. Jonas, MD, Associate in Medicine, Children's
  James Pomaselli, MD, Transplant Surgeon, Lahey Clinic
  Elizabeth Pomfrit, MD, Director, Live Donor Liver Transplantation, Lahey Clinic
  Roger Jenkins, MD, Co-Director, Transplant Institute, Lahey Clinic
  

Lahey Clinic, a physician-led, nonprofit group practice, is world-renowned for innovative technology, pioneering medical treatment, and leading-edge research. A teaching hospital affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine, the Clinic provides quality health care in virtually every specialty and subspecialty, from primary care to cancer diagnosis and treatment to kidney and liver transplantation.