New Delhi, Sep 3 (IANS) A 14-month-old test tube baby has successfully undergone a critical liver transplant surgery at the army hospital here and doctors said he is one of the youngest children to undergo such an operation in the country.

A team of 20 doctors and paramedics carried out an ‘in situ’ surgery to extract the liver from an army officer’s dead wife and transplant half of it in the baby boy, authorities at the Army Research and Referral Hospital here said Wednesday.

The technique of ‘in situ’, involves dividing the donor liver during retrieval into two parts, so that two patients can be benefited from one donor organ.

The 14-month-old boy was conceived by in vitro-fertilization technique commonly known as test tube technique and is ‘amongst the youngest liver transplant recipients in the country’, the hospital said.

The condition of the baby is fine and he is recovering well, doctors at the hospital said.

The baby was born with congenital absence of bile ducts, causing acute jaundice since birth.

The hospital said doctors transplanted the second half of the donor liver in a 26-year-old soldier, suffering from end-stage liver problem.