Medical feat: Kurnool KIMS docs extract kidney from donor without cutting ribs, muscles

Kurnool: In a novel medical procedure, doctors managed to remove a 35-year-old woman’s kidney for transplantation without surgically cutting the ribs and muscles. The operation was performed at KIMS Hospital in Kurnool. This is the first time in the entire Rayalaseema region that a kidney was extracted through the laparoscopic method.

The woman, from Nandyal, donated one of her kidneys to her 40-year-old husband, who had been suffering from kidney problems.

General procedure

Kidney transplantation requires surgeries for the donor and the recipient. It has to be extracted from the donor and transplanted into the recipient. The donors also need to take many precautions so that both don’t contract any infections. The post-surgery period is painful for the donor and the operation scars remain visible. But, when the kidney is extracted through the laparoscopic method, the result is much better.

Laparoscopic method

Kidney extraction has been done by open surgery for a long time, where doctors would cut a rib and the muscles inside, separate the arteries and ureter of the kidney carefully and then extract it. But it leads to severe pain for the patient post-surgery. The doctors have to stitch back the muscles and the suture takes a long time to heal.

“As the woman’s kidney matched with the patient, we convinced her to opt for the laparoscopic method. We didn’t need to cut either the ribs or the muscles in this method. We just had to cut the lower abdominal fascia, a tissue. While doing this, we have to make sure that the surrounding blood vessels are not disturbed. We just separated the muscles and collected the kidney. As a result, the patient is completely free from pain post-surgery,” said consultant urologist from KIMS Hospital Kurnool, Dr Manoj Kumar, explaining the procedure.

The donor, being a 35-year-old lady, the doctors also had to consider the scars. In this method, an incision of 1 cm and two incisions of 0.5 cm were made to extract the kidney. The pain is almost non-existent due to this. According to the doctors, the donor walked on the second day after surgery and was discharged on the third.

Dr Umamaheswara Rao, nephrologist Dr Anantarao, and anesthesiologists Dr Sruthi and Bhuvaneswari were also part of the team.