Ho Chi Minh CityA 16-year-old girl with end-stage renal failure, was operated by a doctor at Children’s Hospital 2 to transplant a kidney from her father’s donor.
The patient was diagnosed with the disease last year, after a period of vomiting and paleness. Doctors performed peritoneal dialysis for her to remove toxins, and consulted with family members who needed a kidney transplant to save her. The father volunteered to donate a kidney to his son, fortunately the test results were consistent.
The team of Children’s Hospital 2 and Cho Ray Hospital collaborated to perform a kidney transplant, three weeks ago. Laparoscopic surgeons removed a left kidney from the father and transplanted it into his daughter’s body. After opening the vascular clamp, the kidney is tight, showing very good perfusion. The transplanted kidney was working and urine was released into the ureter right at the operating room.
Doctors perform kidney washing, one of the most important steps before putting the kidney into the recipient’s body. Photo: Children’s Hospital 2
Doctor Vo Thi Tuong Vy, Department of Nephrology – Endocrinology, Children’s Hospital 2, on December 1, said that the health of father and son was stable after surgery and was discharged. Recent re-examination results show that the kidney is functioning well.
This is the 20th kidney transplant at the hospital, since 2004. Thanks to the growing experience in pediatric kidney transplantation and modern surgical equipment, the transplant takes just over 5 hours, while the early cases took just over 5 hours. Implementation of this technique takes up to 8-10 hours.
According to Dr. Vy, kidney transplant is the preferred treatment for end-stage chronic kidney disease, helping children have a better quality of life than other forms of kidney replacement. Kidney transplantation has a higher survival rate than hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis in all age groups in children. Children with kidney transplants can go to school, improve their health, grow taller, and live normally. Many pediatric patients after kidney transplant have graduated from university, got married, and gave birth to healthy children.
Currently, the biggest obstacle that makes kidney transplants not so many is the source of donated organs and the cost of transplantation. A child kidney transplant currently costs about 200 million VND, after deducting insurance. The kidney donor is an adult and has to pay for the surgery as well as pre-operative testing, about 60-70 million. After the transplant surgery, the pediatric patient must be monitored, tested, and taken anti-rejection drugs, which costs 10-15 million VND per month in the first years. The following years costs less, about 3-5 million a month. If situations and events arise, the family has to spend more money.
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