Doctors at Cho Ray Hospital in HCM City perform the country’s first ABO-incompatible living-donor kidney transplant on a 54-year-old man with end-stage renal disease. (Photo courtesy of the hospital)
HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Cho RayHospital in Ho Chi Minh City has successfully conducted the country’s firstABO-incompatible living-donor kidney transplant.
Tran Thi Hanh, 51, of Ben Tre provincevolunteered to donate one of her kidneys to her husband, Vi Van Biet, 54, whohad end-stage renal disease and has been on dialysis for more than a year.
Her blood type is A and his is B.
The surgery was done on December 29 and thecouple are now in stable condition.
To prepare for the transplant, the patientreceived treatment to lower antibody levels in his blood and reduce the risk ofhis antibodies rejecting the donor kidney, doctors said.
Assoc Prof Thai Minh Sam, head of thehospital’s department of urology, said around 300 patients register for akidney transplant at the hospital every year, but only a third of them undergosurgery due to various reasons, including having a living donor with adifferent blood type.
ABO-incompatible kidney transplant isperformed in many countries, and the hospital has sent doctors and surgeons toleading hospitals abroad to learn the procedure in recent years, Sam said.
Giventhe severe shortage of deceased donors, the ABO-incompatible living donorkidney transplant would help more patients who are on dialysis to get atransplant, he added./.
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Doctors at Cho Ray Hospital in HCM City perform the country’s first ABO-incompatible living-donor kidney transplant on a 54-year-old man with end-stage renal disease. (Photo courtesy of the hospital) 
