GUWAHATI, 3 Feb: Apollo Excelcare Hospital, Guwahati scripted history by performing the first ever swap kidney transplant in Assam. It involves maintaining a registry and exchanging/swapping of kidneys between two families who cannot ideally donate kidney to their own family member because of blood group mismatch. This helps in minimizing the shortfall of kidneys and enables the increase of transplant numbers in a legal manner.
According to a closely monitored case study, the two couples, one hailing from Rangia, Kamrup (rural) and the other from Itanagar, had their donors swapped after undergoing all medical tests and legal clearances.
This enabled the swap transplant to be carried out between the two families simultaneously. The transplant was led by and made possible due to the immaculate planning by Dr. Karan Saraf (Consultant Nephrologist & Transplant Physician) with support from the surgical & anaesthesia team (Dr. Syed Wasim Hassan, Dr. Shajidul Mazumdar, Dr. Bibhash Bhagawati, Dr. Ajoy Deka and Dr. Nabarup Dutta Baruah).
Dr. Karan Saraf stated “There is an acute shortage of organ donors in the region and many patients opt to go out of the state in search of an unrelated donor. There are three modalities of kidney transplant besides the regular transplant namely, ABO Incompatible Transplant (between non matching blood groups), swap transplant (exchange between two families who cannot ideally donate kidney to their own family member because of blood group mismatch) and deceased organ donation. By these means it is possible to increase the donor pool and minimize the acute shortage of kidneys for transplant.”
“Due to our pioneering efforts, the department of nephrology at Apollo Excelcare recently became the region’s first hospital to perform an ABO Compatible Transplant and has now become the region’s first hospital to perform Interstate Swap Transplant. It must be noted that Gauhati Medical College & Hospital has recently performed the first ever deceased organ donor kidney transplant in the region, paving the way for the private sector in the future,” Dr. Karan Saraf adds.