Coimbatore : A city hospital has successfully performed three kidney transplantation by sharing kidneys among three families.

According to a release from Kovai Medical Centre and Hospital (KMCH), the first family had two sisters and elder was the donor and the younger was the recipient. Both were blood group matched.

But the cross match was positive hence we could not proceed with the transplantation.

The second family had sister and brother. The donor was sister and the recipient was her brother. The donor had blood group O (Universal Donor) and the recipient had blood group AB (Universal recipient). “Although the recipient could have received the kidney from his sister because of blood group matching we could not do the transplantation due to the cross match being positive”, the release said.

The third family was husband and wife. The donor was wife and her blood group was A. The recipient was husband and his blood group was O. “Although the cross match was negative we could not do the transplantation because of the blood group mismatch”. The hospital release explained.

All these three patients could have received the kidney from their own family member after using stronger medicine to suppress the immune system and Plasmapheresis.

But it would have entailed substantial financial strain and more importantly it would have put them at increased risk of complications such as bleeding, infection, rejection and reduced survival of the transplanted kidney.

Considering this, Dr.V.Mangalkumar, kidney and pancreas transplantation specialist, proposed the kidney sharing options, as they were suitably matched for their age, kidney function and detailed immunological work up was done with the help of University of Birmingham. After the completion of medical evaluation, the necessary regulatory approval was obtained,.

The surgery was performed on March 23 under the supervision of Dr Mangalkumar who had arranged two donor surgery teams and two recipient surgery teams to operate simultaneously on two donors and two recipients respectively. The surgery was started at 7.00 and two transplantations were completed and the third transplantation was done after some time.

The donors and recipients made good recovery and the donors were discharged on third day and the recipients were discharged after 7 days. They all now enjoy normal kidney function, it was stated.

This type of transplantation involving three donor and three recipient’s pair has been done for the first time in South India.

This type of kidney sharing between families will make kidney transplantation less costly, safer as well as more accessible and kidney sharing scheme will help those 20-30 per cent patients to undergo transplantation who otherwise would not have had that opportunity, the release said.