First of Its Kind ‘Swap of Kidneys’ Performed at KMC-Mangaluru
Mangaluru: This year the 13th World Kidney Day is special as it coincided with International Women’s Day, thus offering an opportunity to reflect on the importance of overall health and kidney problems faced by women at large. Inline with the theme Kidneys & Women’s Health, KMC Hospitals Mangaluru created awareness to instill the importance of healthy living in women. Women continue to be way ahead of men in living kidney donations.
Dr Anand Venugopal, Medical Superintendent, KMC Hospitals addressing the media persons during a press meet held at Mangalore Press Club said, “KMC Hospital has the unique strength of multi-disciplinary specialization essential to treat any and every kidney-related ailment from simple medical management, dialysis, biopsy, critical care, surgical skills & transplant expertise. Kidney Transplant is an extensive procedure where KMC Hospital Mangaluru provides each patient with individual care and guides them starting from pre-work up for cross match results, assistance for registration and legal formalities, medical support by experts – Nephrologist, Urologists and Anesthetists; post-surgery care in the first of its kind the state of the art infection free isolated ICU for transplant cases.”
Also speaking on the occasion, Dr Sushanth Kumar, Consultant Nephrologist KMC Hospital stated “Women are prone to various kidney ailments. There are some kidney disease more common in women like urinary tract infection, auto immune disease like SLE causing Lupus Nephritis. Also during pregnancy most of the kidney disease may worsen fast and also have adverse impact on both baby and mother. Pregnancy induced problems like pregnancy induced hypertension, preeclampsia may have very bad outcome including severe acute kidney injury towards the end of pregnancy or post-delivery.”
He further added “Recently there was kidney transplant performed for exchange/Swap of the kidneys at KMC Hospital Mangaluru that took place between two patient parties i.e. Rajesh and his wife from Kerala and Hariprasad and his mother from Karnataka. Hari Prasad’s mother could not donate her kidney to her son due to mismatch of blood group similarly Rajesh’s wife could not donate kidney to her husband. After being advised from SWAP transplant – both the pairs underwent cross matching and luckily their results were positive for SWAP transplant option. Required permissions were obtained from respective state authorities. Rajesh’s wife’s kidney was donated to Hari Prasad and Hari Prasad’s mother’s kidney was donated to Rajesh.”
Dr Ashok Bhat, Consultant Nephrologist KMC Hospital stated “ Kidneys are important for overall Health. This year the focus is on women and chronic kidney disease(CKD).The incidence of CKD is equal among both men and women. However, it is observed that the number of women coming for treatment of CKD is far lesser than men. Also the number of men on dialysis outnumber the number of women. Even among those who undergo kidney transplantation the number of women are far lesser than men. In fact women frequently outnumber men as kidney donors! This needs to change. Pregnancy in women with CKD can have adverse effects on both foetus and mother. Kidney disease may also worsen during pregnancy.This awareness needs to be spread among public.”
Dr Mayoor Prabhu-Consultant Nephrologist KMC Hospital stated “This year World Kidney Day is coinciding with International Women’s Day. Women, due to multiple reasons often find themselves more prone to morbidity from kidney diseases. Especially in the rural set up and more underprivileged sections, even access to modern kidney care is denied to women. Often physiological states like pregnancy and childbirth can result in Acute Kidney Injury, with high morbidity. Women are also more prone to certain diseases affecting the kidneys, like SLE. It is good that this years World Kidney Day offers a chance to also highlight women’s health.”