Author name: Dr. Chetan Kalal

Sometimes there is an alternative to transplant — if the cause can be treated. Dr Chetan Kalal explains bridges versus cures, what TIPS can and cannot do, why stem-cell and herbal treatments have no proven role, and two cases that went in opposite directions.

Dr Chetan Kalal answers the practical “when can I…?” questions after liver transplant — work by occupation, driving, travel and flying with immunosuppressants, exercise and the three-month lifting rule — and the four things that never lift.

Dr Chetan Kalal explains the four classes of anti-rejection medicines after liver transplant — tacrolimus and cyclosporine, mycophenolate, steroids and everolimus — what each does to protect the graft, what each costs the kidneys, sugar, bone and skin, and why normal liver tests are never a reason to stop.

A liver transplant usually takes 8–10 hours from a living donor and 8–12 hours from a deceased donor. Hepatologist Dr Chetan Kalal explains what happens in each phase, which factors lengthen the operation, and why a longer surgery rarely means something has gone wrong.

Not every cirrhosis needs a transplant, and waiting for a high MELD can be the wrong move when the donor is a relative. Dr Chetan Kalal explains who needs a liver transplant, when to be evaluated, and how the living-donor reality in India changes the timing.

Most transplant refusals are a “not yet”, not a “never”. Dr Chetan Kalal lists the few absolute contraindications, the many reversible ones, what Mumbai’s ZTCC rules require on alcohol, and what to do after a “no”.

A transplanted liver has no expiry date. Hepatologist Dr Chetan Kalal sets out the verified five-, ten- and twenty-year survival figures, then the six determinants — adherence, rejection, metabolic health, infection, surveillance and the original disease — that decide where an individual patient falls, with three cases from his practice.

Abnormal tests after a liver transplant do not mean the graft has failed. Dr Chetan Kalal explains the causes of graft dysfunction by timing, how each is identified and rescued, when re-transplantation becomes necessary and what the registries say about its outcomes — including a case where the graft could not be saved, and how he speaks to a family in that situation.