Chennai: A 41-year-old patient successfully underwent kidney transplant surgery for a record third time and walked out with five kidneys with the help of the efforts of a private hospital in Chennai. The doctors retained the previously transplanted kidneys and the native kidneys to avoid the risk of profuse bleeding and a life-threatening situation.
According to a release from MMM hospital in Chennai, the patient's native kidneys failed at the age of 12 and transplant surgery was conducted at his young age. However, the transplant failed and another transplant was conducted but due to uncontrolled hypertension of the patient the transplant did not prove to be a success.
In this backdrop, he was diagnosed with coronary artery disease and he underwent a triple bypass surgery three months ago and was depending on dialysis treatment. However, the doctors decided to conduct a third kidney transplant surgery. Initially, the patient has two native kidneys and two donor kidneys in his body.
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On July 10, doctors successfully performed the kidney transplant surgery. The doctor who performed the surgery, Saravanan said, “There were four challenges in performing this surgery - firstly, a lack of space for the new kidney in the retroperitoneum; second is the lack of width on the native blood vessels to connect the renal artery and vein.”
“Thirdly, the bladder is scarred with earlier surgeries and finally, the patient tends to develop a lot of antibodies from the earlier surgeries, and plasmapheresis (filtering the blood) has to be performed before the new kidney is placed,” he said.
Apart from this, doctors also decided not to remove the old kidneys and instead make space for a new kidney since the patient could bleed profusely and require a blood transfusion. According to the doctor, the rarely performed surgery was a success and the patient underwent his first set of postoperative check-ups and continues to recover well.