Kerala's first pancreas-kidney transplant performed in Kochi

Kochi: A hospital in Kochi has successfully conducted Kerala's first combined pancreas-kidney transplant, the third such in India.

The highly complex surgery which lasted for 12 hours was conducted on 35-year-old S. Syed Yunus Shahir, an engineer from Palakkad. The donor was a brain-dead 38-year-old patient Thomas Varghese. Shahir would be able to return home after a nearly two-week stay at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS).

Ramachandran N. Menon, the surgical gastro transplant surgeon said that the patient first came to them about two months back and after a series of tests he was cleared for the surgery and then the wait for a donor began.

He said as per the rules of organ transplant and donation, the Kerala Network for Organ Sharing (KNOS), the state government's nodal agency for organ retrieval and sharing, played a key role in facilitating the smooth transfer of pancreas and one kidney from a brain dead person.

Elaborating on the condition of Shahir, Menon said he was suffering from type 1 diabetes for the past 19 years and developed diabetes-related complications like retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy and end stage kidney failure over the past two years.

Despite using an insulin pump, he had erratic control of the blood sugar which was preventing from effectively doing his work. Doctors said the procedure could improve the quality of life and bring freedom from diabetes-related complications.

The first simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplant was done in 1966 in the US.