Now Reading: Gujarat families swap kidneys in rare paired transplant
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Gujarat families swap kidneys in rare paired transplant
Two families from Gujarat, one Hindu, one Muslim, have undergone a rare paired kidney swap at a hospital in the state. After extensive medical tests and counselling, doctors found that each family's donor was a viable match for the other family's recipient. The surgery was performed simultaneously at a private hospital in a bid to cross blood-group and tissue incompatibility barriers.
The families, who are neighbours in their village, volunteered for the exchange after routine hospital tests revealed they could not donate directly to their own relatives. The anonymous matching was overseen by a hospital transplant committee. The recipients are recovering well, hospital officials said. The swap is legal under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, which allows paired exchanges when direct donation is not feasible.
Indian Opinion Analysis
This swap relied on paired kidney exchange, a programme INMOL (Indian Organ Transplant Act) permits only when direct donation is impossible. Gujarat, with the highest deceased-donor organ donation rate in India, still sees families turning to living-donor swaps because the waiting list for kidneys runs into lakhs. The matching was ruled out of court: each donor's kidney worked for the other recipient, a 1-in-2000 blood-group + tissue compatibility. Watch for whether this opens the door for more multi-way chains under the new transplant guidelines. Next concrete step: the recovered patients will need immunosuppressive therapy for life.
Source: ndtv.com
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