Coimbatore: A city hospital claims to have performed a rare and successful kidney transplant on a 28-year old youth, who had no donor with the same blood group in his family.
The man was struggling on dialysis for the last two years and had registered for a cadaver or deceased donor for kidney transplantation. However, due to long waiting list, he was unlikely to get a cadaver donor in the next three years, G Bhakthavathsalam, Chairman, K G Hospital, said in a release today.
After seven days of specialised desensitisation treatment, he had mismatched kidney transplant from his AB positive mother and made a rapid recovery and was discharged, along with his donor mother from the hospital, in just one week after transplant surgery, which was performed a fortnight ago.
The doctors have done such a complex procedure in almost at the same cost as a regular kidney transplant and the patient was discharged in a record time, he said.
The first ABO mismatched kidney transplant in the country was done in April 2009 in Christian Medical College, Vellore.
Approximately, 30 per cent of patients who want a kidney transplant do not have a blood group matched donor. Without transplant, patients end up getting long term dialysis, which is costly (Rs.Three lakhs per annum), affects their quality of life (depend on others and difficult to continue work) and compromise their long term survival (average survival 3-6 years), he said.
Since the average waiting time for cadaver transplant is increasing and is at present more than 3 to 4 years, ABO mismatched transplant is a boon for dialysis dependent patients.
