All about Kidney Transplantation

Dr.Vikas Agarwal, 3 mins read

What is a kidney transplant?

In kidney transplant, a healthy kidney is placed from a healthy living donor or a brain dead (Deceased / Cadaver) donor. After transplant most of the time the patient is discharged after 1 week and donor is discharged after 3 days. Patient has to take medications regularly and strictly follow advice of nephrologist and follow a healthy lifestyle. One has to check his maintain his blood pressure and sugars and do regular investigations as advised by the doctor.

Advantages of kidney transplant

It is the best modality of renal replacement therapy, not only the survival is better but quality of life drastically improves. In fact, after 3 months one can start normal work/ job, and young women can bear and plan children after 1 year of successful transplant.

What happens when your kidneys fail?

When kidneys fail, toxic products, acid and fluid accumulates in the body which affects other major organs like the heart, brain and lungs leading to multiple organ failure. There are two types of treatment presently available for failed kidneys – Dialysis or kidney transplantation. Kidney transplant offers no doubt is the best modality of treatment option for patients with kidney failure as it has shown to have better quality of life and survival is much better than dialysis.

Where can I get a kidney for transplant?

Anybody from immediate family can donate kidney (siblings, spouse, parents, children) and one can get a transplant from grandparents, in laws, cousins and friends.

But for the second group of donors we have to undergo a lot of formalities and there are regulations to be strictly adhered to and followed.

If at all one does not have any living related donor to donate then one can get deceased (cadaver/ brain dead cases) donor registration done with hospital. One is put on a waiting list and whenever a suitable kidney with matching blood group is available, one can undergo transplant in Delhi after doing the required investigations. Aakash Healthcare is amongst the best kidney transplant hospital in Delhi providing the best patient care.

What if patient and donor's blood group do not match?

If at all one has a living related donor but blood group is not compatible, one is left with 2 options:

1. Swap transplant - A paired kidney exchange, also known as a “kidney swap” occurs when a living kidney donor is incompatible with the recipient, and so exchanges kidneys with another donor/recipient pair. For example, if the patient (patient 1) blood group is A and donors (Donor 1) is B in a family and we have another pair who has a patient with blood group B (Patient 2) and donor (donor 2) is A, we can legally exchange the donors. Donor 2 donates to patient 1 and donor 1 donates patient 2.

2. The other option is we go ahead and perform blood group incompatible (blood group mismatch) transplant. There is a procedure that is performed called plasmapheresis / immunoglobuln filters, which removes the antibodies of the patient that will fight against the donors kidney. There is a mild risk of rejection as compared to that of ABO compatible kidney transplant in Delhi. With expertise and experience it is shown that the outcome is the same as in ABO compatible, and this is now the proven and one of the best options for patients with different blood groups.