Surgeons at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong made medical history by operating on a patient's bile duct after removing the organ and her liver from her body, South China Morning Post reported on Monday.

The world's first successful operation of its kind meant that 27-year-old Wai-man was without a liver for five hours, while surgeons removed an advanced cancerous tumor attached to its bile duct. The operation lasted 15 hours, the Hong Kong based news paper said.

Ten months after the surgical technique, called auto transplantation, Wai-man is healthy and has resumed her work as a sales-girl.

There have been five previous attempts overseas to remove bile duct tumors since 1988 using the technique.

Four patients died shortly after surgery while a fifth suffered a relapse and died eight and half months later.

From the Chinese University in Hong Kong, surgery professor Lau Wan-yee, who was a member of the medical team, said the breakthrough could bring new hope to 200 patients with late-stage bile duct cancer each year in Hong Kong.

( April 15, 2002)