Transplant through laparoscopic surgery

KOCHI: In an attempt to reduce the complications of open surgery, a team of surgeons and doctors has successfully performed a kidney transplantation laparoscopically, for the first time in the state. This is the second surgery performed in the country and the third in the entire world. While the traditional method of kidney transplantation for the past twenty-five years has been through open surgery, the last few years have seen doctors performing keyhole surgery on the donor to remove the kidney, but the transplantation was always an open procedure till now.In this case, laparoscopic surgery is performed on the recipient as well. The kidney from the donor is kept ready by one team of doctors while an incision of the same size is done on the recipient. The kidney is inserted. The blood vessels of the transplant kidney are joined to the recipient followed by the rejoining of the transplant ureter to the native urinary bladder.The surgery was done by a team led by transplant and laparoscopic surgeon Dr George P Abraham. The nephrology team was headed by Dr Abi Abraham and the anaesthesia team by Dr Mohan Mathew. The surgical team included Dr Krishna Mohan Ramaswami, Dr Krishnanu Das and Dr Jisha Johnson Abraham. Addressing the media at Lakeshore Hospital here on Thursday, Dr George said that laparoscopy is an alternative to open surgery in many conditions in gastro-intestinal, gynaecologic and urological specialities. It offers unparalleled comfort to the patients, allowing them to attain pain-free recovery from the surgery and is cosmetically appealing. It also enables the surgeon to perform a superior job by offering a magnified view of the operating field.  “Performing keyhole kidney transplantation remained a dream till recently, owing to the technical difficulty in connecting the arteries and veins of the donor kidney to the deeply placed iliac vessels of the recipient by microfine stitches,” he said.  “The patient, Bina Kumari, 35, of Kannur has made a remarkable recovery and the transplanted kidney started functioning just like in open surgery,” Dr George said. The surgery costs around Rs 3.2 lakh.