National Voluntary Blood Donor Day Celebrated at ILBS On 1st October, 2008

The national voluntary Blood donor was celebrated with great fervour at ILBS. A series of talks on Voluntary Blood Donation and related subjects were held. The meet was attended by the ILBS staff and PWD staff working at ILBS. Dr. S.K. Sarin, Project Director, ILBS initiated the programme by committing to be on the Voluntary Blood Donor Panel of ILBS. He encouraged all present to become a part of the voluntary blood donation movement. Dr. Meenu Bajpai, Assistant professor, Transfusion Medicine spoke at length about the blood donation procedure and laid at rest many myths regarding blood donation. Dr. Ekta Gupta, Assistant professor Virology gave a talk on Bio- safety procedures to be followed by all healthcare workers. Blood usage in surgical practice was broached upon by Dr. Shaleen, Assistant professor, Surgical Hepatology. The meeting was concluded by Dr. Anil Agarwal Dy. Head HR/Admin, whose heart felt anecdotes on the importance of donation warmed the hearts of all present.

This meet also laid the foundation of social responsibility among its staff by committing to serve its patients through voluntary blood donation

Facility of Fibroscan in ILBS

Fibroscan is a new instrument developed by Echosens, France, which utilizes a form of ultrasonography to measure the stiffness of the liver without entering it. This makes assessement of severity of liver disease very simple and non-invasive. Normally, most liver disease patients would require to undergo a liver biopsy for assessing the severity of liver disease and to assess response to therapy. But liver biopsy involves putting a needle into the liver to take a small piece of the liver for evaluation. However, liver biopsy is associated with some complications (albeit rare) such as pain at the biopsy site and risk of significant internal bleeding.

The fibroscan machine uses a probe, similar to an ultrasound probe, which is kept on the right lower chest wall of the patient. Just by pressing a button the ultrasound probe sends a shear wave in to the liver and detects the stiffness of the liver. This data is automatically processed by the on-board computer and the liver stiffness is displayed on the screen. 10 such readings are recorded. The entire procedure lasts less than 10 minutes. The patient can immediately go back to home or work since there is no pain, no injection, no cutting, no anesthesia required for this procedure.

Fibroscan will be useful for diseases such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis. Use of fibroscan will allow repeated follow up examinations, which earlier would have required repeated liver biopsies. However, there are many conditions which will still require a liver biopsy. In this sense fibroscan will not be totally able to replace a liver biopsy , at least for now.

Overall, fibroscan is a very effective tool for the hepatologists and is also very patient friendly.