Biliary atresia is a disorder that affects newborn babies. Pediatric hepatologist Frank DiPaola, MD, walks through the symptoms and treatment options for this pediatric disease of the liver. Learn more at: https://childrens.uvahealth.com/services/pediatric-liver-care Transcript My name is Frank DiPaola. I'm a pediatric hepatologist and associate professor at University of Virginia. Biliary atresia is a disorder that affects newborn babies. Typically babies with biliary atresia early on are otherwise very healthy, but they're jaundiced. And then as they get older, particularly if they don't come to attention and receive care, then they start to get sick. Their liver enlarges, they start to have problems gaining weight. And then as the disease progresses, without therapy, will always cause progressive damage to the liver. You start to have significant scarring to the liver and the associated complications. Standard of care therapy for biliary atresia once it's diagnosed is a surgery we call a Kasai Portoenterostomy, which is where that plumbing of the liver that's diseased is surgically removed. About half of kids unfortunately fail that surgery early on in life and need to have a liver transplant. The outcomes of Kasai are actually linked with timing to Kasai. So the earlier we do the Kasai, the better kids are going to do, the more likely they are to survive with their own liver. So it's actually really important for kids to be seen in a center that has experience in diagnosing kids with liver disease. We do a great job of that at UVA. It's really important for kids to come to a place where they can receive the full range of options for treatment, which we certainly have at UVA Health.