Five-way Kidney Swap Performed at Johns Hopkins

Transplant News,  Dec, 2006  

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Surgical teams at The Johns Hopkins Hospital this month successfully completed the first five-way donor kidney swap among 10 individuals. All five organ recipients -- three men and two women -- are fine, as are the five donors, all of whom are women.

The marathon, 10-hour surgeries that took place November 14 occupied six operating rooms staffed by twelve surgeons, eleven anesthesiologists and eighteen nurses. Four transplant candidates had come to Hopkins separately for evaluation, each with a willing donor whose blood and tissue types were incompatible. Using a previously developed living donor matching system, the Hopkins transplant team included a so-called altruistic donor in the mix and were able to arrange a five-way swap, in which all four original candidates received compatible kidneys from someone they had never met.

The remaining kidney went to a patient who was next on the United Network for Organ Sharing organ recipient list.

Link: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112000363.html (11/29/06)

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