Strangers swap kidneys to save their hubbies

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Bhubaneswar: It’s not unusual to see family members donating organs to save the lives of their loved ones; but it is rare to come across cases where totally unrelated people donating their vital organs to save strangers.
In such a rare case at a city hospital, wives of two unrelated families voluntarily came forward to donate their kidneys to save the lives of respective husbands. The case relates to two families where the husbands were suffering from kidney failure and needed renal transplant to survive and live a normal life.
However, since the blood group of the spouses did not match, they were unable to facilitate kidney transplant. Waiting for a donor with matching blood group would have escalated the health condition of the patients. As the luck would have it, the two patients got hold of each other, ensuring kidney transplant at the earliest.
In this case, after examination of the patients and the donors, it was decided that Jayanti Sahu, (donor 1 and wife of Sahu) would donate her kidney to Sankhua (recipient 2) and Arnapurna Peda (donor 2 and wife of Sankhua) would donate her kidney to Sahu (recipient 1). Through this understanding, both the women could be able to successfully save the lives of their respective spouses. The surgery was done successfully at the BR Kalinga Hospital here.
Experts claim that kidney transplants are often marred by blood and tissue compatibility issues and other factors and such kidney swap transplant can come to rescue.
“A majority of patients suffering chronic kidney ailments in India fail to obtain a donor kidney. They either have to opt for expensive dialysis or wait for a donor. The lack of cadaver donors in our country and lack of matching blood types even when family members come forward has resulted in a serious imbalance,” said Dr Manas Ranjan Pradhan, Senior Transplant Surgeon at the hospital.
He added that the Kidney Swap Transplant aims to circumvent this problem, wherein the donors are swapped between two recipients with whom their blood group matches, making transplant a viable option.