Visakhapatnam: City docs transplant kidney, liver on a single day

Visakhapatnam: In a rare feat, a team of doctors at KIMS Icon Hospital successfully performed kidney and liver transplantation on a 50-year-old person on a single day.

The recent feat was claimed to be the first instance of the hospital. Speaking on the occasion, AP Jeevan Dhan coordinator K Rambabu said that 2,800 patients were still looking forward to organ transplantation. "Such major surgeries require tremendous exercise that requires doctors working together for 12 to 16 hours at a stretch. One donor can give a new lease of life to eight persons," Dr. Rambabu stated.

Providing a huge relief to Kanaka Apparao, a photographer by profession, the doctors performed both kidney and liver transplantation on the same day. After his discharge from the hospital, Apparao is back to leading a normal life.

Sharing the challenges with the media here on Friday, KIMS Icon medical gastroenterologist Chalapathi Rao Achanta and nephrologist Dr R K Mahesh said there were concerns as the patient's liver was badly damaged due to severe spread of hepatitis-C virus. Adding to the problem, his kidneys were also completely damaged due to diabetes, they informed. The team that performed the surgeries include Ravichand Siddachari, Sachin Daga, Umamaheswara Rao and Murali Krishna Padhyla, Chalapathi Rao and R K Mahesh.

The hospital's managing director P Satish Kumar said that with state-of-the-art equipment in place, organ transplant surgeries were performed at the hospital.