Prof. Mohamed Rela

Brief Profile

Prof. Mohamed Rela is a pioneering figure in liver transplantation with over three decades of experience. He started India’s largest liver transplant program in 2009, and has been performing over 300 liver transplants annually since then. In 2018, he founded Rela Hospital to provide high-quality, affordable medical care, including advanced multi-organ transplantation.

Educational Qualifications

• M.B.B.S – 1982, University of Madras, India
• M.S – 1987, University of Madras, India
• FRCS – 1988, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
• DSc (Honoris causa) – 2013, The Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University, India

Accomplishments

• Performed over 6,000 liver transplants.
• Conducts more than 200 robotic liver surgeries and over 450 complex hepatobiliary surgeries yearly.
• Published over 900 scientific articles on liver transplantation and complex surgeries.
• Achieved a Guinness World Record in 2000 for a successful liver transplant on a five-day-old girl, now a 24-year-old law student.
• Pioneered split liver transplantation, where one liver is divided and transplanted into two individuals.
• Recognized as one of the most innovative pediatric surgeons by Top Masters in Healthcare Administration.

Affiliations and Memberships

• TTS: The Transplantation Society
• BMA: British Medical Association
• RSM: Royal Society of Medicine
• BTS: British Transplantation Society
• ILTS: International Liver Transplant Society
• AUGIS: Association of Upper GI Surgeons of Great Britain
• ESOT: European Society of Organ Transplantation
• BASL: British Association for the Study of the Liver
• IHPBA: International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association
• APASL: The Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver
• AST: American Society of Transplantation

Present position

• Chairman & Managing Director, Dr. Rela Hospital, Chennai
• President, Liver Transplant Society of India (LTSI)
• Councilor, The Transplantation Society (TTS) – South/Southeast Asia
• Executive Council Member, International Living Donor Liver Transplantation Group (iLDLT Group)
• Associate Editor, American Journal of Transplantation
• Past President, International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS)
• Founder & Trustee, National Foundation for Liver Research (NFLR)
• Course Director, Post MCh Fellowship in Liver Transplantation, Dr.
• MGR Medical University, Tamil Nadu

Honors and Awards

• 1996: Panchanan Chatterjee Oration and Gold Medal, Association of Surgeons of India
• 2001: Senior Lecturer, King’s College, University of London
• 2001: Recognized Teacher Status and PhD Supervisor, University of London
• 2005: Professor of Liver Surgery and Transplantation, King’s College, University of London
• 2009: Scroll of Honour and Medal, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry
• 2010: Dr. Madhanagopal Oration and Medal, Madras Medical College
• 2012: Scroll of Honour, The Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University
• 2024: Lifetime Achievement Award, Association of Health Providers India (AHPI) at AHPICON 2024, Madurai

AHPICON’s Lifetime Achievement Award

Prof. Mohamed Rela, Chairman & Managing Director, Rela Hospital, and a pioneer in liver transplantation, was honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award instituted by Association of Health Providers India (AHPI) at AHPICON 2024, a one-day conference cum exhibition focusing on the environmental and financial sustainability of the healthcare sector, held in Madurai on June 15, 2024.

AHPICON 2024 has also recognised 15 hospitals of various sizes from across Tamil Nadu for their excellence in providing quality healthcare services.

Prof. Rela is one of the most accomplished Liver surgeons in the world. He has published over 400 scientific articles and papers on liver transplantation, complex hepatobiliary pancreatic surgery and more. Prof. Rela has performed over 6000 liver transplants, including one on a five-day-old baby, earning him an entry into the Guinness Book of wrold Records. He is the President of Liver Transplant Society of India, and he has been elected to the Council of The Transplantation Society as Councilor-at-large for South/Southeast Asia.

Prof Rela has over 28 years of experience in liver transplantation. He started the Institute of Liver Disease and Transplantation in 2009 in chennai. It has quickly become the largest liver transplant program in India. He started Rela Hospital, which is an International Medical facility and a quaternary care hospital dedicated to fostering and responding to the needs of a diverse patient population.

Organised by AHPICON Tamil Nadu chapter, AHPICON 2024 has attracted the participation of about 50 speakers and close to 500 healthcare professionals.  AHPICON has over 21,000 member hospitals across the country. The association’s TN chapter represents 250+ member hospitals.

Editorial Work and Reviewer

Editorial Board:

• Associate Editor, American Journal of Transplantation
• Associate Editor – “Transplantation” – Official Journal of The Transplantation Society
• Editor – Liver Transplant Forum – Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology(2010-2015)

Reviewer:

• “Liver transplantation” official journal of American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases
• “British Journal of Surgery” Europe’s premier surgical journal
• “Transplant International” official journal of European Society for Organ Transplantation
• “Paediatric Transplantation” official journal of The International Paediatric Transplant Association
• “HPB International” official journal of International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association
• “Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology” official journal of Indian Association for Study of the Liver
• Hepatology International – Official journal of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL)
• “Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery”
• Annals of Surgery
• World Journal of Surgery
• “Case Reports in Pathology”
• “International Journal of Nephrology”

Innovation

Surgical Innovations

He has published extensively in the area of clinical liver transplantation (over 160 peer reviewed articles). Throughout his period as a consultant surgeon, he has concentrated on developing and practicing new surgical techniques in liver transplantation. The major drive for this has been shortage of donor organs particularly for small children. He has led the country in techniques such as Split liver transplantation, and led the world in performing Auxiliary liver transplantation and Mono-segment liver transplantation for transplantation in neonates.

Associated Publications

• M Rela, ND Heaton, P Muiesan, KC Tan. A technique for hepatic artery anastomosis during orthotopic liver transplantation. Transplant Int. 1995; 8:244-24521.
• M Rela, P Muiesan, P Andreani, P Gibbs, G Mieli-Vergani, AP Mowat and ND Heaton. Auxiliary liver transplantation for metabolic diseases. Transpl Proc. 1997; 29: 444-445
• M Rela, H Bonatti, P Muiesan, ND Heaton. ‘Nonanatomical’ Reduction of Liver Allografts: A Promising Option for Neonates with Fulminant Hepatic Failure. Transpl Proc. 1997; 29: 446
• M Rela, V Vougas, P Muiesan, H Vilca Melendez, V Smyrniotis, J Karani, Roger Williams, N Heaton. Split liver transplantation: King’s College Hospital experience. Ann Surg 1998; 227:282-8
• M Rela, ND Heaton. Split liver transplantation. Leading Article. British Journal of Surgery 1998; 85: 881-883
• M Rela, P Muiesan, H Vilca-Melendez A Dhawan, A Baker, G Mieli-Vergani, ND Heaton. Auxiliary orthotopic liver transplantation for Crigler Najjar Syndrome Type 1. Ann Surg 1999; 229:565-569
• P Srinivasan, P Muiesan, H Vilca Melendez, ND Heaton, M Rela. Monosegmental Liver Transplantation. Surgery 1999;126:10-12
• Deshpande RR, Bowles M, Vilca Melendez H, Srinivasan P, Girlanda R, Dhawan A, MieliVergani G, Muiesan P, Heaton N, Rela M. Results of split liver transplantation in children. Ann Surg. 2002; 236:248-53.
• Deshpande RR, Heaton ND, Rela M. Surgical anatomy of segmental liver transplantation. Br J Surg. 2002 Sep;89(9):1078-88.
• Review. Maguire D, Vilca-Melendez H, Heaton ND, Rela M. Is cholangiography required for ex situ splitting of cadaveric livers? Transpl Int. 2004 Jan;17(1):46-8.
• Fusai G, Steinberg R, Prachalias A, Heaton ND, Spitz L, Rela M. Ex vivo liver surgery for extraadrenal pheochromocytoma. Pediatr Surg Int. 2006 Mar;22(3):282-5.
• Tucker O, Prachalias A, Kane P, Rela M. Graft positioning at liver transplantation in situs inversus. Liver Transpl. 2006 Nov;12(11):1720-2.
• Rela M, Battula N, Madanur M, Mieli-Vergani G, Dhawan A, Champion M, Raiman J, Heaton N. Auxiliary liver transplantation for propionic acidemia: a 10-year follow-up. Am J Transplant. 2007 Sep;7(9):2200-3.
• Heaton N, Faraj W, Vilca Melendez H, Jassem W, Muiesan P, Mieli-Vergani G, Dhawan A, Rela M. Living related liver transplantation in children: A single centre experience. Accepted August 2007- BJS
• Faraj W, Dar F, Bartlett A, Melendez HV, Marangoni G, Mukherji D, Vergani GM, Dhawan A, Heaton N, Rela M. Auxiliary liver transplantation for acute liver failure in children. Ann Surg. 2010 Feb;251(2):351-6
• Rela M, Bharathan A, Palaniappan K, Cherian PT, Reddy MS. Portal flow modulation in auxiliary partial orthotopic liver transplantation. Pediatr Transplant. 2015 May;19(3):255-60.
• Govil S, Shanmugam NP, Reddy MS, Narasimhan G, Rela M. A metabolic chimera: Two defective genotypes make a normal phenotype. Liver Transpl. 2015 Nov;21(11):1453-4.

Research and Publication

• Lara Neves Souza, Rodrigo Bronze de Martino, Alberto Sanchez-Fueyo, Mohamed Rela, Anil Dhawan, John O’Grady, Nigel Heaton, Alberto Quaglia: Histopathology of 460 liver allografts removed at retransplantation: A shift in disease patterns over 27 years. Clinical Transplantation 02/2018;, DOI:10.1111/ctr.13227
• Michael Charlton, Josh Levitsky, Bashar Aqel, John O’Grady, Julie Hemibach, Mary RInella, Marwan Ghabril, Ray Thomason, Patrizia Burra, Ester Coelho Little, Marina Berenguer, Abraham Shaked, James Trotter, John Roberts, Manuel Rodriguez-Davalos, Mohamed Rela, Elizabeth Pomfret, Faouzi Saliba: International Liver Transplant Society Consensus Statement on IMMUNOSUPPRESSION IN LIVER TRANSPLANT RECIPIENTS. Transplantation 02/2018;, DOI:10.1097/TP.0000000000002147
• Trevor L. Nydam, Mettu Srinivas Reddy, Elizabeth A. Pomfret, Mohamed Rela: Progression of living liver donation worldwide. Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation 02/2018; 23(2):1., DOI:10.1097/MOT.0000000000000516
• Mayank Jain, Jayanthi Venkataraman, Joy Vargese, Mohamed Rela, mukul vij: A rare cause of gastrointestinal bleeding in the post-transplant setting. 11/2017; 3(4)., DOI:10.5114/ceh.2017.71447
• Mohamed Rela, Naresh P. Shanmugham: Accessible Pediatric Liver Transplantation in India: A Long way to go. Indian pediatrics 11/2017; 54(11):911-912., DOI:10.1007/s13312-017-1180-5
• Ashwin Rammohan, Sripriya Srinivas, Yahya Al-Azri, Srinivas M Reddy, Mohamed Rela: Restoring One Way Traffic Across the Roux Loop: The Nakajo Valve. 11/2017; 22(1)., DOI:10.14701/ahbps.2018.22.1.90
• Dinesh Jothimani, Ezhil Arasan, Vaibhav Patil, Mohamed Rela: Periscreen Strip Test—Rapid Diagnosis of Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology 07/2017; 7:S54., DOI:10.1016/j.jceh.2017.05.102
• Sanjay Govil, Ashwin Rammohan,Sandeep Rajasekar, Mohamed Rela: Should the A2ALL Definition of Early Allograft Dysfunction (EAD) Replace Dahm Criteria for Small-for-Size Dysfunction (SFSD) as the Outcome Predictor after Adult LDLT. Transplantation 05/2017; 101(5S2):128.
• Ashwin Rammohan, Mettu S Reddy, Naresh Shanmugam, Ilankumaran Kaliamoorthy, Gomathy Narasimhan, Venugopal Kota, Mohamed Rela: Auxiliary Partial Orthotopic Liver Transplantation (APOLT): No Longer Stepping through the Looking Glass?. Transplantation 05/2017; 101(5S2):25.
• Ashwin Rammohan, Mettu S Reddy, Mohammed Safwan, Gomathy Narasimhan, Sanjay Govil, Venugopal Kota, Mohamed Rela: Factors Predicting Readmission Following Deceased and Live Donor Liver Transplantation. Transplantation 05/2017; 101(5S2):242.
• Ashwin Rammohan, Mettu S Reddy, Mohammed Safwan, Gomathy Narasimhan, Sanjay Govil, Venugopal Kota, Mohamed Rela: Pattern & Impact of Readmissions following Deceased & Live Donor Liver Transplantation.
• Uday A. Sanglodkar, Dinesh Jothimani, Mohamed Rela: Hemospray for Recurrent Oesophageal Band Ulcer Bleeding. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology 07/2017; 7:S95., DOI:10.1016/j.jceh.2017.05.171
• Lekshmi Kalinathan, Ruba Soundar Kathavarayan, Dinakaran Nagendram, Mukul Vij, Mohamed Rela: Segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma and dysplastic liver tumors in histopathology images using area based adaptive expectation maximization. Multimedia Tools and Applications 01/2017;, DOI:10.1007/s11042-016-4260-y
• Shanmugam N, Valamparampil JJ, Scott JX, Vij M, Narasimhan G, Reddy MS, RelaM. Complete remission of refractory hepatoblastoma after liver transplantation ina child with sorafenib monotherapy: A new hope? Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2017Dec;64(12). doi: 10.1002/pbc.26701. Epub 2017 Jul 11. PubMed PMID: 28696063.
• Rammohan A, Reddy MS, Farouk M, Vargese J, Rela M. Pembrolizumab forMetastatic Hepatocellular Carcinoma Following Live Donor Liver Transplantation:The Silver Bullet? Hepatology. 2017 Oct 10. doi: 10.1002/hep.29575. [Epub aheadof print] PubMed PMID: 29023959.
• Rela M, Reddy MS. Pediatric Liver Transplantation: An Asymmetrical War for Access to Livers. Gastroenterology. 2017 Oct;153(4):888-889. doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2017.08.054. Epub 2017 Sep 1. PubMed PMID: 28867276.
• Maiwall R, Sarin SK, Kumar S, Jain P, Kumar G, Bhadoria AS, Moreau R,Kedarisetty CK, Abbas Z, Amarapurkar D, Bhardwaj A, Bihari C, Butt AS, Chan A,Chawla YK, Chowdhury A, Dhiman R, Dokmeci AK, Ghazinyan H, Hamid SS, Kim DJ,Komolmit P, Lau GK, Lee GH, Lesmana LA, Jamwal K, Mamun-Al-Mahtab, Mathur RP,Nayak SL, Ning Q, Pamecha V, Alcantara-Payawal D, Rastogi A, Rahman S, Rela M, Saraswat VA, Shah S, Shiha G, Sharma BC, Sharma MK, Sharma K, Tan SS, Chandel SS,Vashishtha C, Wani ZA, Yuen MF, Yokosuka O, Duseja A, Jafri W, Devarbhavi H,Eapen CE, Goel A, Sood A, Ji J, Duan Z, Chen Y; of the APASL ACLF ResearchConsortium (AARC) working party. Development of predisposition, injury, response, organ failure model for predicting acute kidney injury in acute on chronic liver failure. Liver Int. 2017 Oct;37(10):1497-1507. doi: 10.1111/liv.13443. Epub 2017 Aug 2. PubMed PMID: 28393476.
• Ramana Ramya J, Thanigai Arul K, Epple M, Giebel U, Guendel-Graber J, Jayanthi V, Sharma M, Rela M, Narayana Kalkura S. Chemical and structural analysis of gallstones from the Indian subcontinent. Mater Sci Eng C Mater Biol Appl. 2017 Sep 1;78:878-885. doi: 10.1016/j.msec.2017.04.004. Epub 2017 Apr 11. PubMed PMID: 28576062.
• Rajakumar A, Kaliamoorthy I, Rela M, Mandell MS. Small-for-Size Syndrome: Bridging the Gap Between Liver Transplantation and Graft Recovery. Semin Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2017 Sep;21(3):252-261. doi: 10.1177/1089253217699888. Epub 2017 Mar 23. 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. Liver Transpl. 2017 Aug;23(8):1007-1014. doi: 10.1002/lt.24759. Epub 2017 Jun 29. PubMed PMID: 28294557.