At AIIMS-Delhi, surgeons performed a dual kidney transplant on a patient who was currently on dialysis for the first time. The successful operation was done on a 51-year-old woman patient, by AIIMS’s department of surgical disciplines and department of nephrology in collaboration with the Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation (ORBO) on December 22 last year. Additional professor of surgery at the hospital Dr Asuri Krishna, who performed the surgery, said this feat was being shared with the media now as “we wanted to ensure the patient is doing well”.
Dr Krishna said the donor was a 78-year-old woman. A severe head injury caused by a fall resulted in the donor being admitted to AIIMS Trauma Centre on December 19. Her family consented to organ donation after she was declared brain dead later.
The recipient’s both kidneys had failed and she was on dialysis. During the operation, the donor’s two kidneys were placed in a heterotropic manner without removing her own kidneys. Thus, the patient now has four kidneys.
“The patient is doing well. She is off haemodialysis and her kidney is functioning normally. These patients require closer monitoring and have been doing well so far,” Dr Krishna said.
Why both kidneys of the donor were used
As the donor was 78-years-old, due to her extreme age, her single kidney would not have been sufficient for a patient on dialysis. Dr. Krishna revealed that they clamped the major artery and vein of the patient to join the first kidney and then placed the second kidney below it.
Dr. Krishna said placing two kidneys on the patient’s right side was a major challenge.
“Both the kidneys were placed on the right side of the recipient one on top of the other. The recipient had an uneventful recovery with both the kidneys performing well following the surgery,” said Dr Krishna.
“This one-of-a-kind surgery is a great example of using limited resources to bridge the huge demand and supply gap that exists for organs in India by using the organs from an elderly donor which usually would have been rejected,” he said.
Who was the donor?
The donor was a 78-year-old woman, who was admitted to the AIIMS’ Trauma Centre on December 19 with a severe head injury after suffering a fall, and later, declared brain dead, PTI reported.
“The challenge was that because of her extreme age, her single kidney would not have been sufficient for a patient on dialysis. Therefore, a decision was taken to use both kidneys in a single recipient,” Krishna said
The doctor said this feat is being shared with the media now because we wanted to ensure that the patient is doing well.
The doctor said this feat was shared with the team months later as the team wanted to ensure the patient was doing well. “We wanted to ensure the patient is doing well before reporting this dual transplant in the media,” the doctor said.
