The operation, being performed on Jiang Yuzuo, who has suffered Wilson's disease, began at about eight o'clock Sunday morning at the Jiangsu Provincial People's Hospital in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, and is expected to take 15 hours.

Jiang was diagnosed as having Wilson's disease. The congenital disease is characterized by the inability to metabolize copper and is marked especially by cirrhotic changes in the liver and severe mental disorder.

Doctors believe the best way to save the boy would be transplanting part of the liver from a relative.

The operation will consist of removing the boy's liver and replacing it with the part of the liver of his mother Zuo Zhenyan.

This operation is the second time Chinese doctors have conducted such an procedure. The first such operation, which was a success for a 10-year girl who got a liver transplant from her mother, was also carried out by doctors at the hospital.

(People's Daily 02/18/2001)