Successful first swap transplant at Justice K S Hegde Hospital

Successful first swap transplant at Justice K S Hegde Hospital

www.mangaloretoday.com

Mangaluru, Jan 15, 2017: The Justice K S Hegde Hospital successfully arranged a swap transplant on December 19. The doctors waited for all four to recover completely before they recently went public with the information.

Seema and Shanthi (names changed), both in their thirties, wanted to donate their kidneys to their husbands suffering from end-stage renal disease but the blood groups did not match. Doctors counselled each wife to donate to the other’s husband, said Dr Rajeev T P, professor and head, department of urology, who headed the transplant team at the hospital in Deralakatte.

"There is an acute shortage of organs as there’s a gap between the number of organs donated and the number of people waiting for them. Renal transplantation is the only curative treatment for patients with end-stage renal disease. As per statistics, 1.5 lakh people in India are waiting for kidneys and only one in 30 gets it. Many patients end up on lifelong dialysis when family members are not suitable for kidney donation due to blood group incompatibility. Donor non-availability due to multiple reasons is the biggest hurdle for these patients. In this scenario, swap transplants is an initiative to reduce the gap between demand and supply," said Dr Rajeev.

Nephrologist Dr Janardhan Kamath counselled the patients and their wives about the arrangement. They were prepared for transplant surgery and had a joint meeting with the urology and anesthesiology teams at the KS Hegde Medical Academy (KSHEMA). Shanthi would donate a kidney to Seema’s husband and Seema would donate a kidney to Shanthi’s spouse. After procuring permission from the state-level authorization committee for transplantation of human organs, and KSHEMA for organ donation, they were prepared for surgery, he said.