Chennai: Doctors at Apollo Hospitals here gave a new life to two critically sick patients from a single donor.
Organ transplant team of the hospital successfully completed the combined bowel and abdominal wall transplant surgery on Chinni Krishna (17), who was suffering from Ultra Short Bowel Syndrome and the complicated kidney transplantation was performed on a 35-year-old woman, using Hypothermic Oxygenated Machine Perfusion (HOPE)-a device which keeps the kidney outside the body for a longer period of time with continuous oxygen supply.
Chinni Krishna from Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh was diagnosed with acute mesenteric ischemia a syndrome of sudden loss of blood supply to the small intestine which results in permanent damage to the small intestine.
Apollo Hospitals initiated a nutritional rehabilitation programme for the patient to attend to his caloric requirement to stabilise him and to get him ready for a bowel transplant. Over a period of nine months Chinni Krishna gained 15 kilograms. He underwent a transplant procedure in February this year on availability of bowel and abdominal wall from an 18-year-old brain dead donor.
A team of doctors headed by transplant surgeon of Apollo Hospitals, Professor Dr Anil Vaidya, performed these two novel transplants.
Addressing media persons here Wednesday, Dr Anil Vaidya said, ”An intestinal transplant is a life-saving procedure as it helps patients who have suffered over years without eating solid food and resorting to intravenous feeding. This procedure comes as a blessing for them as it helps them to eat and even taste food again.”
The same team performed a complex kidney transplant procedure on the patient who was on dialysis for End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).
The kidney was also harvested from the same 18-year-old and was performed using HOPE, which preserved the organ for 11 hours. Preserving the organ in this device keeps the kidney longer and better for transplantation than the usually perfused and left in a cold environment surrounded by ice/cold solutions. The HOPE system has the added advantage of continuous inflow of high concentrated oxygen along with the continuous infusion of hypothermic solution. Studied done in west have shown that the rejection rate was less in the kidneys perfused with such preservation devices, he said.
Speaking about these two novel transplants, Apollo Hospitals managing director Suneeta Reddy said, ”Apollo Transplant Institute is well known for several multi-organ transplant procedures with over 90 per cent success rates. Our organ transplant centre is a beacon of quality and hope for patients from across the world.”