The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Visakhapatnam News : Gift of life through kidney transplant

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 08, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

Gift of life through kidney transplant

By Our Special Correspondent

A. Ramakrishna who recently underwent kidney transplant surgery, with the chief of nephrology of King George Hospital, T. Raviraj, on Monday. — Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

VISAKHAPATNAM, FEB. 7. The King George Hospital here, one of the three Government General Hospitals in the State permitted to perform kidney transplant surgeries, has successfully performed one more transplantation. Incidentally this is the 50th year of kidney transplantation in the world.

The surgery, third in the last two years, was performed 10 days ago and instead of the two weeks needed for both donor and recipient to recover, the recipient is ready for discharge while the donor, his father, had already left for his village.

This was informed at a press conference here on Monday by the Superintendent of the KGH, M. Ganeswara Rao, the chiefs of nephrology and urology, T. Raviraj and Ch. Subba Rao, respectively.

Free of cost

Dr. Ganeswara Rao said the surgery would have cost Rs. 2 lakhs in a private hospital, but was done free of cost here. All the equipment and medicines, along with supervision by expert doctors, were provided. KGH was ready to perform such surgeries provided all conditions for the surgery -- recipient and donor being blood relations and their blood groups matching - were fulfilled he said. The success rate of a transplantation was 95 per cent.

In this case, A.V.S. Dharma Rao, a teacher, donated one of his kidneys to his 27-year-old son, Srinivas, working at a chemical factory in Pydi Bhimavaram in Srikakulam district. Mr. Srinivas's kidney problem became critical since October and the doctors decided to transplant a kidney.

"I am completely relieved of the problem. I am a happy man now," said Mr. Srinivas.

Complicated surgery

Dr. Subba Rao, who performed the surgery, said the kidney transplant surgery was a complicated one since it had to be performed simultaneously on the donor and recipient. Transplantation had to be done if the kidney stopped performing completely.

According to Dr. Raviraj, the nephrologist who looks after patients after the transplantation surgery, two lakh cases were being reported every year in India and at a given point of time, there would be three to four lakh patients needing kidney transplantation or dialysis.

More kidney transplant surgeries were taking place in Southern India than the rest of the country due to availability of modern equipment and more awareness among the people. In Andhra Pradesh, 5,000 to 6,000 surgeries were being performed. Between 3,000 and 4,000 patients were treated for kidney problems every year at KGH and 20 to 25 of them needed transplantation.

Anti-rejection therapy

Post-operative care counted, he said. Anti-rejection therapy was important as the body would initially reject any foreign body.

Cadaver transplantation, facilitated through the Human Organs Transplantation Act of 1995, could increase the number of transplantation surgeries, but some aspects like facilities and unwillingness of the brain-dead patient's family to donate organs prevented many transplantations from being performed.

Only about 400 transplantations had taken place in the country since the Act came into force 10 years ago.

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