Brain dead, 49-year-old man gives life to two

After a six-year wait for a cadaver donor,  a 45-year-old suffering from renal failure finally got a kidney, that too from a person with a very rare anomaly characterized by total inversion of all abdominal and thoracic organs.

Traditionally, organs from such donors are considered an absolute contraindication for liver and heart transplantations as they pose a technical challenge. The 49-year-old donor suffering from brain tumour was declared brain dead, but the donor’s family then consented to donating his kidneys. 

Dr Rakesh Rai, the liver transplant surgeon at Fortis Hospital, who conducted the surgery, said, “During organ retrieval, we found that the donor had this rare congenital anomaly called  complete situs inversus.”

He added that getting a donor with such an anomaly is also very rare. One in 22,000 people suffer from complete situs inversus disorder. Partial situs inversus is very rare, a one in a million case. “Since the occurrence of the disorder is very rare, getting such a donor is as well. Conducting a transplant of their organs is challenging,” Dr Rai said. 

While one kidney was donated to a Fortis Hospital patient, the other was donated to a patient of Bombay Hospital. Both the recipients are doing well according to doctors.

“Our patient was very happy as it meant the end of his six-year-long suffering. He was on dialysis all these years. It has been a week since the surgery and he is doing well,” Dr Rai said. 

There has been a surge in organ donations this year, with 46 organs donated so far. The city registered two cadaver donations on September 14, which helped three patients with end-stage organ failures on Saturday.

The cadaver donation programme has been in the news since former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh died on August 14 in Chennai due to complications arising out of liver cancer. His doctor said he could have helped Deshmukh by performing kidney and liver transplants, but there were no cadavers available when they were needed.