You are in > manchester.com  > News > US doctors perform first six-way donor kidney swap

Health

US doctors perform first six-way donor kidney swap

09/04/2008

US doctors have performed what is believed to be the world's first six-way donor kidney swap among 12 people.

The procedures took place on Saturday April 5th at the Johns Hopkins hospital and all the patients, donors and recipients are said to be doing well.

Operations involved nine surgical teams, six operation rooms and nearly 100 medical professionals in total.

The six-way swap went ahead when five separate transplant candidates visited the hospital, each with their own willing donor whose blood or tissue types were incompatible.

By using a living donor matching system the hospital's transplant team introduced an 'altruistic donor' - one who volunteers a kidney to no particular recipient - into the group and organised a six-way swap.

All five original candidates received compatible kidneys from someone they had never met and the remaining kidney went to the next patient on the United Network for Organ Sharing's recipient list.

Dr Robert Montgomery, chief of the transplant division at Johns Hopkins hospital, said a living donor matching system improves the chance of a good outcome from transplantation "by spreading the risk of recipient graft loss across more people".

"The neediest are served, since in many cases incompatible donor-recipient pools have a high proportion of patients who are hard to match," he added.

"And fairness is served because the last paired donor's kidney in the chain is allocated to the next compatible patient on the deceased donor waiting list."