Rare kidney swapping surgery done in Kerala for brothers with inherited condition

Pala: A rare kidney-swapping surgery was successfully held at the Mar Sleeva Medicity in Pala. This was the first kidney swapping surgery in central Travancore and was conducted by a team of efficient doctors and medical professionals. This team was led by a senior consultant at the department of nephrology and transplant nephrologist, Dr Manjula Ramachandran, a senior consultant at the urology department and renal transplant surgeon, Dr Vijay Radhakrishnan and a senior consultant at the cardiothoracic and vascular Surgery Dr C Krishnan.

Transplant surgeries were done on two brothers, aged 49 and 47, who hail from Thrikodithanam in Changanassery. Their blood groups are A positive and B positive,e respectively. The blood group of the wife of the elder brother was B positive, while the wife of the younger brother was O positive.

The tests found that the younger sister-in-law's kidney matched the elder brother, and the kidney of the elder sister-in-law was suitable for the younger brother. The brothers got a new lease of life when the wives agreed to swap the kidneys. However, the surgeries had their own share of challenges and risks. The brothers were diagnosed with a rare kidney disease called ADPKD (Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Syndrome) that causes fluid-filled lumps or cysts in the kidneys. They had been undergoing dialysis for months before the surgery was conducted. It was a challenge for the doctors to transplant their kidneys as the cysts in their kidneys were huge and weighed almost 7 kilos.

Meanwhile, the older brother was diagnosed with severe heart disease before the kidney-swapping surgery. So, the doctors planned a complex bypass surgery for him first. The surgery to remove the kidney was done only after he had recovered. Their kidneys were removed two months before the kidney-swapping surgery was successfully conducted. This rare surgery lasted for over 10 hours. All four of them have recovered and returned to their homes.

What causes ADPKD?
According to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), ADPKD is inherited. Apparently, even when children are born with it, it causes noticeable problems only when the cysts grow large enough to affect kidney functions – often between 30 and 40 years of age. A child has a one in two per cent chance of developing the condition if one of their parents has a faulty gene that causes it. In 25% of cases, people also develop it without a family history, often because it was never diagnosed in a relative or the relative’s death happened before the symptoms were recognised. The issues triggered by ADPKD are:
1) Kidney stones
2) tummy pain
3) blood in urine
4) Hypertension
5) Serious urinary tract infections