Liver from one, Kidney from another donor! Rare & complex transplant successful

Hyderabad:For the first time in the country, the Doctors at Apollo Hospitals here have performed a complex combined liver and kidney Transplant by using organs from two different living donors.

The Complex surgery was performed by Dr Manish Varma, Chief Transplant Surgeon, Dr Ravi Andrews, Consultant Nephrologist and Dr Naveen Polavarapu, Chief Transplant Hepatologist on a fifty-seven-year-old Tanzanian patient, Gabriel Ceaser Sisa.

The uniqueness of the case was further compounded by the usage of a blood group mismatched organ, the liver. That made the task extremely perilous, but the hands-on experience and the immense expertise, the Transplant and Support Teams at Apollo Hospitals command, steered the outcome to success.The patient has since recovered and is all set to be discharged, a hospital release here said on Monday.

The patient first visited Dr Naveen Polavarapu, Apollo Hospitals, here in 2017 with Liver related problems. It soon transpired that he had chronic Liver and chronic Kidney disease.

Over the course of the next three years his Liver and Kidney diseases progressed despite being on active medical treatment and close monitoring. As he reached end stage Liver disease and end stage Kidney disease requiring hemodialysis, he was advised to undergo a combined liver and kidney transplant.

Usually, such transplants are performed using organs from a single cadaveric donor, which avoids complications associated with multiple living donors including blood group mismatch, post-surgery donor recovery etc.

In fact, rejection of the blood group mismatched organ by the recipient is very high and is an immense challenge, needing constant monitoring, a release here on Monday said.(UNI)