Posted on 05/27/2022 at 6:17 p.m.,
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This is a first in France: a team from the AP-HP has just achieved the feat of transplanting a patient with a kidney taken from a deceased patient, himself transplanted from the same kidney 10 years earlier. Back on this medical feat.
It is a kidney that will have been transplanted twice. For the first time in France, surgeons have achieved the technical feat of transplanting a patient with a kidney already transplanted ten years ago to another patient and the operation has proven to be a great success.
A second life saved
The kidney was taken from a patient in whom it was transplanted ten years ago. This patient, victim of a CVA was hospitalized at the Lariboisière hospital in Paris, before being the subject of a cessation of treatment following a collegial decision.
The doctors then had the idea of reusing his graft, which is perfectly functional. The operation takes place on May 2 and the press release announcing it on May 25. Three weeks after the intervention, therefore, a period of time necessary for the surgeons to communicate on the state of health of this patient, who is well and whose graft has functioned normally after 48 hours, thus regulating the patient’s renal failure.
An exceptional surgery
Small peculiarity underlined by the surgeons: the recipient could accept many grafts because of a very tolerant immune profile. In addition, doctors qualify this type of intervention, emphasizing its “exceptional” nature, specifying that it cannot be reproduced regularly or counter the lack of grafts.
Maastricht III Protocol
This removal took place within the framework of the Maastricht III protocol, which allows the removal of organs from patients “presenting with circulatory arrest following a decision to limit or discontinue therapeutic care”which was the case here.
The kidney transplant is currently the most practiced transplant in France with some 3,500 kidney transplants each year. There are around 15,000 French people currently waiting for a kidney transplant and the waiting time to obtain a transplant varies between one and seven years, depending on the case.