Dr. Akila Rajakumar

Brief Profile

Dr. Akila Rajakumar  is the Senior Consultant in Liver Intensive Care and Anaesthesia and Clinical Lead for Critical Care Services at Rela hospital. She also serves as Course Director for the fellowship program in HPB and Liver Transplant Anaesthesia.

Educational Qualifications

• MBBS 2000, Madras Medical College, Chennai, India
• MD 2004, Madras Medical College, Chennai, India
• FRCA 2008, Royal College of Anesthetists, UK

Research and Publication

Important Contributions:

• Important role in establishing the Liver Intensive Care unit at Gleneagles Global Health City, Chennai, India– Established protocols for donor and recipient management in the ICU. Actively involved in training of liver intensive care nurses.
• Creating awareness and promoting the understanding of brain dead donor management in the ICUs in India among physicians, intensivists, transplant coordinators – Invited faculty in several meetings and national conferences in India. Actively involved in transplant coordinator training programmes.
• Served as the Course Director for the fellowship program in liver transplant and hepatobiliary anaesthesia, which is approved by The Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University, India since 2015.
• Served as a guest editor for the ILTS education website in 2015 –iltseducation.com (international liver transplant society) and published 2 articles in the website.- ‘Small For Size Syndrome After Living Donor Liver Transplantation: Intensive Care Management’ & ‘Small for Size Syndrome in Living Donor Liver Transplantation: Introduction’
• Key role in the constitution of liver transplant anaesthesia society LITRACSI in India in 2018. Currently nominated as treasurer of the society
• Currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the Federation of Transplant Anaesthesia Society as part of the Society for Advancement of Transplant Anaesthesia (SATA) .

• The use of terlipressin in live donor liver transplant recipients – published in 2017
• Use of high volume plasmapheresis in acute liver failure due to yellow phosphorus poisoning
• Describing and predicting postoperative pain experience of living liver donors
• A prospective study on Carbapenem Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) rectal colonization in Indian living donor liver transplant recipients – Incidence & outcomes”

• I.Kaliamoorthy/AkilaRajakumar “Anaesthesia and Critical care for Liver Resection”-  Surgery of the Liver – Textbook Chapter – – ECAB Clinical Update: Surgical Gastroenterology and Liver Transplantation
• Rajakumar A, Kaliamoorthy I, Rela M, Mandell MS. Small-for-Size Syndrome: Bridging the Gap Between Liver Transplantation and Graft Recovery. SeminCardiothoracVascAnesth. 2017 Sep;21(3):252-261. doi: 10.1177/1089253217699888. Epub 2017 Mar 23. Review. PubMed PMID: 28758559.
• Reddy MS, Kaliamoorthy I, Rajakumar A, Malleeshwaran S, Appuswamy E, Lakshmi S, Varghese J, Rela M. Double-blind randomized controlled trial of the routine perioperative use of terlipressin in adult living donor liver transplantation.LiverTranspl. 2017 Aug;23(8):1007-1014. doi: 10.1002/lt.24759. Epub 2017 Jun 29. PubMed PMID: 28294557.
• Rajakumar A, Gupta S, Malleeswaran S, Varghese J, Kaliamoorthy I, Rela M. Anaesthesia and intensive care for simultaneous liver-kidney transplantation: A single-centre experience with 12 recipients. Indian J Anaesth. 2016 Jul;60(7):476-83. doi: 10.4103/0019-5049.186025. PubMed PMID: 27512163; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4966351.
• Kaliamoorthy I, Reddy MS, Rajakumar A, Varghese J, Pandey S, Pillai B, Micheal JC, Kancherla R, Rela M. Safe emergency evacuation of a Tertiary Care Hospital during the “once in a century” floods in Chennai, India. Indian J Crit Care Med. 2016 Feb;20(2):104-8. doi: 10.4103/0972-5229.175933. PubMed PMID: 27076711; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4810922.
• Rajakumar A, Kaliamoorthy I, Reddy MS, Rela M. Anaesthetic considerations for liver transplantation in propionic acidemia. Indian J Anaesth. 2016 Jan;60(1):50-4. doi: 10.4103/0019-5049.174799. PubMed PMID: 26962256; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4782424.
• Served as a guest editor for ILTS education website iltseducation.com and published 2 articles in the website in 2015 – Small For Size Syndrome After Living Donor Liver Transplantation: Intensive Care Management – Small for Size Syndrome in Living Donor Liver Transplantation: Introduction

• Liver Transplantation- July 2015. Double blind randomized controlled trial of the routine use of terlipressin in adult live donor liver transplantation – Oral presentation Mettu S Reddy,Ilankumarankaliamoorthy, Joy Vargese, AkilaRajakumar, Sukanya Lakshmi, Mohamed Rela
• Abstracts- Liver Transplantation, 2014.  Epidural Analgesia for donor hepatectomy is safe and effective – Our experience with 167 cases. – Oral presentation in the ILTS Conference in London in June 2014
• Deceased donor vs live donor liver transplant outcomes – our experience – Poster presentation in the ILTS Conference in London in June 2014
• Predictors of renal dysfunction in liver transplant recipient – Poster presentation in the ILTS Conference in London in June 2014
• Abstracts- Liver transplantation, 2013. Anaesthesia and Intensive Care within a New Liver Transplant Programme – Report on Outcomes after Evolution of a Successful Structure after 179 Transplants. IlankumaranKaliamoorthy, AkilaRajakumar, V.G. Venkatesan, S. Malleeswaran, P. Thomas Cherian, M. Rela. Institute of Liver Transplantation & HPB Surgery, Global Hospitals and Health City, Chennai, India; Kings College Hospital, London, United Kingdom.
• Paediatric Liver Transplantation in South India: Outcomes and Lessons Learnt from the First 50 Cases. P. Thomas Cherian, N. Shanmugam, J. Verghese, A. Rajakumar, M.S. Reddy, K. Venugopal, G. Narasimhan, I. Kaliamoorthy, M. Rela. Institute of Hepatology, Liver Transplantation & HPB Surgery, Global Hospitals, Chennai, India.
• Deceased Donor Liver Transplantation in the East – A Viable Opportunity for Growth or a Logistic and Clinical Nightmare? P. Thomas Cherian, J. Verghese, V.G. Venkatesan, A. Rajakumar, M.S. Reddy, P. Palaniappan, N. Nethaji, I. Kaliamoorthy, M. Rela. Global Hospitals, Chennai, India.
• Achieving a Successful Balance between Living Related and Cadaveric Donors. Experiences of a South Asian Liver Transplant Programme. P. Thomas Cherian, I. Kaliamoorthy, J. Verghese, M.S. Reddy, D. Jothimani, R. Perumala, O. Arikichenin, V. Shanmugam, N. Shanmugam, K. Venugopal, M. Rela. Global Hospitals, Chennai, India.
• ‘Comparison of clinical efficacy of 2 x ED 95 doses of atracurium and cisatracurium’ – Dr.AkilaRajakumar, Dr.R.Mathan Kumar

• Coronary artery calcium score as a screening test for cardiac evaluation in liver transplant recipients
• Thrombocytopenia after liver transplantation – predictors of delayed recovery and its impact on outcome after liver transplantation

• Invited speaker in many national and international meetings.
• Management of LDLT recipients –ILTS 2014, London
• Oral presentation – Intraoperative CRRT during liver transplantation. At 1st Asia Pacific AKI CRRT Congress in Kuala Lumpur 2017
• International forum for organ transplantation anaesthesia– Indian perspective in SATA 2nd annual symposium in Chicago in May 2018

Clinical Expertise

She has about 17 years of experience in the field of anaesthesia and intensive care and has spent around 10 years exclusively in the field of HPB,liver transplant anaesthesia and liver intensive care. Her special interests include Combined Liver & Kidney Transplantation, Acute Liver Failure and Intensive Liver Care.

Experience

• May 2009 – August 2018 Gleneagles Global Hospital, Chennai