Asian Institute of Medical Sciences pulls off youngest kidney transplant

Grandfather is filtering Blood for his little Grandson

New Delhi, July 13: In a first, Faridabad’s Asian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) grew in size in transplant expertise by transplanting a kidney in a kid barely 3 years old.

But icing in the cake is that a grandfather has donated kidney to his little grandson. So next time, whenever you pass by ignoring your expectant grandfather, think he not only keep a reserve of affection for you, he has kidney, liver or other vital organ in case you might need it it in near future.

A kid of such age has to grow in size for kidney transplant. Till then he has to survive on dialyses which in itself is trying times for the kid. But Ahmad from Iraq was fortunate enough to get the transplant without going through the travails dialyses, thanks to the expertise of the transplanting team of the hospital.

Thus, Nephro and Kidney transplant experts at Asian Institute of Medical Sciences happened to be the first to pull off India’s first youngest Kidney transplant.

Team Led by Dr. Vijay Laxmi, Transplant Surgeon, Dr. Jitendra Kumar, Director Kidney Transplant, Dr. Vipin Gupta, Urologist and Dr. Divesh Arora did not just give Ahmed a new lease of life, but also showed a ray of hope to many more children suffering from end stage Kidney disease.

Ahmad was on Haemodylysis in Iraq before he was admitted in Asian Hospital in the month of Jan 2015 with sudden Kidney failure.  He was kept on kidney dialysis for 4 months.

Dr. Vijay Laxmi, Transplant Surgeon at Asian Institute of Medical Sciences said, ‘Ahmad was found to have kidney failure at a young age of 3 years. Normally such children are put on peritoneal dialysis till they grow in size to receive a kidney transplant. But peritoneal dialysis is not available in Iraq and also due to very small size; the child was not able to tolerate the other alternative ‘Haemodylysis’.

He further said, ‘When this child was admitted in Asian Hospital, the biggest challenge in this case was to provide a sort of permanent solution. Kidney transplant in such small children is very challenging and avoided. Due to narrow size of the blood vessels, anastomoses of new kidney are very difficult. Such kidneys are prone to get clotted. Stress of surgery is also challenging for a small kid with kidney failure.  However, due to non availability of any suitable treatment at Iraq, the choice was actually between death and transplant. Our team at Asian hospital accepted this challenge and transplanted his grandfather’s kidney in this child on 22nd May 2015.’

Director Nephrology and Kidney Transplant, Dr. Jitendra Kumar said, ‘As expected, the post operative course was very turbulent with child developing stress cardiomyopathy requiring prolonged ventilatory support. Now child has successfully completed more than a month of transplant, & he is the youngest transplant recipient in India. His recovery and grateful eyes of his family is the greatest reward for the team at Asian hospital which comes up with another milestone in the healthcare.”

Padamshri Dr. N K. Pandey, Chairman & Managing Director, Asian Institute of Medical Sciences said, ‘We often treat international patients but in this case due to the age of the patient doctors were afraid to operate and patient was in hospital for 6 months but now we are happy that child is fine and ready to move back to his country’