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In San Francisco, California a rare nine-way kidney transplant has happened. While it might seem like something built out of medical testing and work of a study, it was born out of simple necessity.
The hospital where the kidney transplant took place were University of California San Francisco Medical Center, and California Pacific Medical Center.
Doctors said that there have been no complications measured and that it would appear as though the success is going to be continuing as the patients all recover.
Dr. Robert Osorio, the director of transplantation at California pacific Medical Center said, “The larger the denominator and choices you have potentially, the more transplants you can get done.” It is a simple matter of mathematics, and in this instance they were unable to find donors through traditional means, so some backdoor donating was used to put this nine way transplant together.
It is incredible for lot reasons, but the way it came together organically, combined with what it can do for the medical science community as a whole with regards to kidney transplant is profound.
The original couple found that they were not compatible to give up a kidney for the other. In that instance, a woman was one of the 7,000 people on the kidney transplant list nationally, but there was another opportunity.
Another duo was found going through the identical situation at the second hospital. When the two pairs decided that they would give up their kidneys in an effort to put this entire transplant together, the list continues to grow. At the end, the chain consisted of nine transplants, and all were incredibly successful.
The learning experience here came as doctors learned to better understand what would lead to successful transplants, especially in larger scale. The team of professionals was able to receive a real life test sample, without actually conducting a laboratory experiment.
While it is early to determine the long term success, the medical teams with all patients believe that there is a very good reason to be excited and hopeful that what we’re seeing here could be duplicated anywhere as long as the network of resources at various hospitals is acknowledged.
It is simply a matter of understanding, where you are, what is available, and making the donor pool as large as possible.
