Three-year-old girl gets blood group-incompatible kidney transplant

A three-year-old girl suffering from a critical disorder, in which the urine tends to go back to the kidneys, has become the youngest person in SAARC region to undergo a blood group incompatible kidney transplant, claimed an NCR-based hospital.

The girl, Pratyusha, weighing 10 kgs was suffering 'reflux nephropathy' since birth and was operated upon at the Medanta Hospital.

"The major risk of blood group incompatible transplant is hyperacute rejection (kidney may stop working the same day of transplant). Looking at the criticality of the surgery, we designed a protocol to remove the antibodies and then conducted the transplant on April 5.

"Since, the mother had a different blood group, the child received renal transplant with mother as the donor, with a designed desensitisation and immunosuppressive protocol," said Dr Sidharth Sethi, Consultant, Pediatric Nephrology and Pediatric Renal Transplant, Medanta, in a release.

According to the hospital authorities, the girl required an early kidney transplant, but there was no blood group compatible donor.

An attempt was made to swap the donors with other families and for cadaveric donation list, but nothing materialised.

"After six months of desperate search, we planned to take mother as a donor which was a blood group incompatible transplant. The child was B positive and the mother was A positive," a hospital official said.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) comprises eight member states: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.