The Kidney Transplant Unit at Dr.Kamakshi Memorial Hospital is one of the pioneers in renal transplant across Tamil Nadu. The Renal Transplantation Programme was started in the year 2008.

What is Organ Transplant?

Organ transplant is the last treatment option for the patient facing organ failure. It is the process which is done by the surgical transformation of the donated organ into the body of the recipient who is diagnosed with organ failure. Many people face organ failure due to diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, hepatitis, cystic fibrosis and cirrhosis. Some may get failure of organs due to injury and birth defects.

The organs for the transplantation are mostly cultivated from the living person, deceased persons via circulatory death and from the person who attained brain dead. The organs that can be transplanted are liver, heart, kidney, eye, pancreas and thymus. According to the WHO website, kidney transplantation is the most frequently carried out transplantation in the world.

• Kidney
• Liver
• Pancreas

KIDNEY TRANSPLANTATION

Kidney Transplantation is an alternative long term solution to regular dialysis treatments, when this is successful it usually means greater independence and a higher quality of life. Kidney transplantation is a procedure that places a healthy kidney in your body that will do the work of the two failed kidneys. It is also called as renal transplantation.

There are many factors to take into consideration such as the fact that a donor kidney can be difficult to obtain, a transplant involves major surgery with all the risks that this involves, and the following drug treatment will continue for the rest of your life. Making the decision to have a kidney transplant may therefore not always be an easy one.

Kidney Transplants at Dr. KMH:

Nephrologists at Dr. KMH undertake living donor transplants only, which are provided by close family or friends who donate one of their healthy kidneys. We offer high standards of assessment, surgery and aftercare. We have an excellent team of surgeons and we can offer the most modern techniques such as laparoscopic removal of the donor kidney.

• Human leukocyte antigen or HLA tissue type.
• Blood group: the same rules apply as in blood transfusion.
• Antibody levels: known as cross-matching.

LIVER TRANSPLANTATION

Liver transplantation involves the replacement of the whole of a patient's liver with that from a donor. Most donations occur from people who have an acute terminal illness and who had expressed an intention to donate their organs after death, a process called cadaveric donation. A healthy person may also donate a part of their liver to a relative in a process called Live Related Liver Donation (LRLD).

Patients will normally spend 2-4 weeks in hospital to recover after transplant surgery, and a full recovery can take up to six months. They will have to take a number of new medications to help look after their new liver. In particular, they will need to be on life-long immunosuppression medication to prevent rejection.

A patient's general health and physical condition needs to be sufficiently robust to successfully undergo transplant surgery, so it is important to consider the potential need for transplantation earlier rather than later in patients with advanced liver disease, whilst they are still relatively well.

Why one need Liver Transplant?

The most common reason for needing a liver transplant is when a patient's own liver has extensive and irreversible damage and is starting to fail. This is called end-stage liver disease or decompensated cirrhosis. A liver specialist can use liver disease severity scoring systems to predict when a patient may need a transplant, though good clinical judgment and experience are also vital. Liver transplantation is also sometimes performed as an operation to treat some forms of primary liver cancer, called hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

This operation is carried out with the intent of curing the cancer. Rarely, liver transplantation is used a life-saving procedure in patients with acute liver failure, a condition that can deteriorate rapidly over a number of days, and which if untreated can lead to multi-organ failure and death.

Liver specialists at Dr. KMH have extensive expertise in the management of liver transplant patients.

We follow strictly follow the ethical practices in the transplantation surgeries.