Dubai Health Authority carries out its first live organ transplant
SISTER DONATES ORGAN TO BROTHER; LIVE LIVER TRANSPLANT PLANNED NEXT
In a first for the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), a team of surgeons from Dubai Hospital carried out the first living donor kidney transplant on February 10.
The donor, 24-year-old lawyer Ayesha Waleed Marzooq donated her left kidney to her brother, Khalid, 27, it was announced yesterday. The surgery was conducted by a surgical team comprising of 25 people at the Dubai Hospital headed by Dr Yasir Ahmad Al Saeedi, chief urologist and robotic surgeon who extracted the organ.
On the transplant side, Dr Andrea Risailti, consultant, general surgery and chairman of organ transplant committee at DHA and professor of surgery at the University of Udine and Dr Zaid Abdul Aziz, general surgery consultant and head of the bariatric unit at Dubai Hospital and his team conducted the organ transplant.
The organ started functioning within 24 hours of the transplant. DHA has now slated a liver transplant soon and is set to establish a Organ Transplant Centre of Excellence at Dubai Hospital, revealed top officials.
Siblings overjoyed
Both the donor and recipient are doing well. “My brother was suffering so much since 2016 since he was on dialysis and I am happy I was able to donate my kidney to save my brother’s life,” Ayesha said.
Khalid added: “My health situation was really deteriorating, I used to get tired quickly and I couldn’t walk much. I am really thankful for my sister because my mental and physical health is much better than before.”
Khalid was suffering from kidney failure due to an autoimmune disease and was on dialyisis three times a week at the Dubai Hospital.
Simultaneous procedures
The procedure of extraction and transplant happened simultaneously where the kidney was extracted by Dr Saeedi, in a minimally invasive procedure and transplanted into the recipient by Dr Risaliti in the neighbouring OT following a six-hour surgery.
Dr Risaliti said: “In this case, the patient was undergoing dialysis since 2016 owing to an auto-immune disease and a simple Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) matching confirmed that the sister was an ideal donor.”
Dr Saeedi said he extracted the healthy kidney from the donor using laparoscopic donor nephrectomy and 3D reconstruction and printing. Dubai Hospital is the first hospital to conduct a laparoscopic donor nephrectomy in the UAE.
Advanced technology
Dr Saeedi said that 3D reconstruction and printing technology available at the DHA was utilised to create a replica of the kidney to help identify the exact length of the vessels prior to the procedure and so ensure a successful transplant procedure for the recipient.
He said: “After carefully studying the 3D printed replicas we conducted a laparoscopic donor nephrectomy procedure, which is the internationally preferred procedure for kidney removal in live donors, because it offers quick recovery,
less pain, and a shorter hospital stay. The minimally invasive procedure requires four small incisions [each only 1 cm wide] to conduct the procedure. We then enlarged one of the incision to 10cm to remove the kidney,” said Dr Al Saeedi.
The donor was at the hosptial for four days post-surgery while the recipient was discharged after 10 days.
Transplant programme
Dr Younis Kazim, CEO of the Dubai Healthcare Corporation and Dr Maryam Mohammad Al Rayssi, CEO of Dubai Hospital congratulated
the surgery team. “This is a first step in our transplant programme. We will shortly introduce liver transplant and also cadaver organ trasnplants,” Dr Kazim said.
Humaid Al Qutami, Director-General of the DHA said the success of the first kidney transplant is the first step towards implementing its organ transplant strategy and towards establishing a distinguished organ transplant centre.
Currently 300 patients receive dialysis from Dubai and the Northern Emirates at Dubai Hospital. The strategy will help reduce death rates between 4882 per cent, Qutami added.