Posted on 07/08/2009 6:31:24 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Baltimore, MD (AHN) - Four hospitals have completed the final leg of a three-week-long cross-country medical relay. In the first-of-its-kind series of surgeries, doctors exchanged not batons, but kidneys, involving 16 separate procedures.
The surgeries transplanted eight kidneys from donors in one city into recipients in other cities. Hospitals involved were Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
The domino-style marathon began June 15 and concluded July 6, removing kidneys from three men and five women and implanting them into three men and five women. The procedure, known as kidney paired donation, took an organ from a person willing to donate, but whose kidney was not compatible to the intended recipient. That kidney was shipped to a recipient at one of the other hospitals for whom there was a match. In exchange, a donor at one of the other hospitals sent a kidney matched to a recipient at one of the other locations.
The surgeries involved more than 100 medical professionals.
All of the patients were reported in good or satisfactory condition following the surgeries. In the final set of procedures, a surgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hosptail removed a kidney from a 37-year-old Illinois woman, Christine Hargis. Packed in ice, the kidney was flown by chartered jet to Johns Hopkins, where it was transplanted to the recipient.
The donor had intended to donate her kidney to her mother, but testing showed they were not a blood antigen match.
"This will serve as a blueprint for national match in which kidneys will be transported around the country resulting in an estimated 1,500 additional transplants each year," Dr. Robert Montgomery, chief transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins, said in a statement.
As of Wednesday, 102,353 persons were awaiting an internal organ for transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a clearinghouse.
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