Four people in the first week of May will get donated kidneys from unrelated people, whose relatives will receive kidneys, in turn, from others. This will be the third such domino kidney transplant in the country. The state transplant authorisation committee is expected to give the procedure its green signal.
Four people in the first week of May will get donated kidneys from unrelated people, whose relatives will receive kidneys, in turn, from others. This will be the third such domino kidney transplant in the country. The state transplant authorisation committee is expected to give the procedure its green signal.
The last domino transplants in the city comprised six donors and six recipients, and were conducted on January 25, 2014, in Mumbai. Of the six transplant surgeries, three were done at Bombay Hospital and two at Hiranandani hospital, while one was carried out at Hinduja hospital.
Hinduja Hospital nephrologist Dr Jatin Kothari, who is part of the domino transplant procedure, said, “This is the third time we will be conducting such domino procedure. The two earlier procedures were hugely successful. The success of the earlier procedures has set a precedent. It encourages people to opt for it as it reduces a patient's waiting time for the organ. Along with me senior nephrologist Dr Alan Almeida is also part of this procedure. Now we are doing paper work for the legal permission which is expected to come through by the end of the month, and we will conduct the procedure in the first week of May. For the last two procedures, the government helped a lot, hope they will help to expedite this one too.”
Why couldn't the donors simply give kidneys to their spouses? Dr Kothari added, “One of the couples has the same blood group, but their tissue-matching test, which needed to be negative, came up positive. They have no option but to go for the swap (domino) transplant.”
In the case of another couple, donor Aarti Tungare was ready to donate a kidney to her husband Makarand, but their blood groups did not match. Aarti's blood group is B and her husband's O. Doctors advised Makarand to register with the Apex Swap Transplant Registry (ASTRA), which addresses the issue of mismatched blood groups or tissues among those who come for a transplant.
Said Jagdish Nada, husband of a kidney recipient, “It is very easy to be selfish and undergo the kidney transplant procedure smoothly, but when we came to know that not one but three lives could be saved by domino procedure, we decided to exchange kidneys by mutual agreement.” Nada's wife's uncle gave a kidney to Makarand Tungare, while Nada's wife got a kidney from another woman, Maimunna Hashmi.
“Without the domino method, patients would have had to wait for at least 7-9 years for a transplant,” said Dr Ganesh Sanap, who maintains the swap registry at Shushrut hospital in Chembur.
(Some of the patient names have been changed to protect their identities.)
What is domino kidney transplant procedure?
In every kidney transplant procedure, blood group of donor and recipient should match. When they don't match, domino procedure is availed. In this procedure, the donor from one couple donates a kidney to the recipient of another couple (who are unrelated to each other). The transplant is then carried out in a series till the last donor in the chain donates to the first recipient in the lineup.
Number of doctors involved this time
This complex surgery includes 44 doctors, 8 urologists, four vascular surgeons, 16 assistant surgeons, four nephrologists, four assistant nephrologists, 8 anaesthetists, 16 nursing staff, and 8 operation theatres. Of the four transplant procedures, two will be conducted at Hinduja hospital and two at L H Hiranandani hospital.
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