Spain performs its first crossover kidney transplant

[mysteriouza]

The surgery took place at hospitals in Granada and Barcelona earlier this month

Spanish surgeons have carried out the country’s first crossover kidney transplant, between two married couples in Andalucía and Aragón. It’s a procedure performed when a person in need of a healthy kidney has an incompatible donor, but is able to receive a kidney from the healthy partner of another couple in the same situation.

The laparoscopic surgery took place at hospitals in Barcelona and Granada on 21st July, and it’s understood from the Health Minister, Trinidad Jiménez, that both couples have already been discharged from hospital and are in good health. The patients in both cases were the wives, and the donors, their husbands.

Some 22,000 people undergo dialysis treatment in Spain, and of those, 4,300 patients are on the waiting list to receive a new kidney. The crossover kidney transplant programme currently has 16 patients with incompatible donors on its registry, with the next compatibility assessment, EFE reports, due to be carried out by the National Transplant Organisation this September. It’s one of three which take place every year.