Although we have competent people to perform the operations, good medications are available in our country which is as good as anywhere else in the world as well as we have laws in place but what we need is awareness about Kidney donation. Dr. Narayanan Unni Academic Affairs Director of Aster Medcity in Kochi Spoke to Shahid Akhter editor of ETHealthworld that they will know more about breakthroughs in kidney transplants in India and challenges that continue to dominate.

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Trends: Kidney Transplant

Considering over the last 5 decades, the kidney transplantation in our country has achieved progress in terms of both numbers i.e. quantity and as well as the quality of transplants. Over the year the transplant outcomes have improved. And the credit goes to an improvement in surgical techniques. We have a very rare surgical complication as today the surgical techniques are more or less perfected.

Immunosuppressive medications are another field for an important development where the patient has to take that to help the kidney to function within the patient’s body. So far the survival of the kidney is concerned we have very effective medicines which are available and has made the difference.

Understanding the immunity of the patient body as well as the need for aseptic precautions the third important factor which has also shown considerable improvement. Reducing the incidence of infections among patients who have undergone a transplant and has contributed to the improvement in survival. Also, today we have around 8000-10000 transplants in a year done in different parts of the country. The laws and regulations are very clear as to how a transplant can be done or who the donor can be, so the government is done with its role. We have competent people to perform the operation, we have good medications available. So all together this has contributed to the success of kidney transplantation in India in 2019.

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Challenges in Regard to Kidney Transplant

Availability of donors is the main obstacle faced in the transplant. Where near relative (first group of donors) i.e., parents, siblings, children, grandparents, and spouses can donate a kidney to their relatives or if it is a donation which is purely based on affection or friendship (second group of donors) than the law states one must seek permission from the committee of the hospital or go to the committee of the government which has to give its permission respectively.

And then those who have had brain death (third group of donors) we call them as cadaver donors or deceased donors, these are people who suffer damage to the brain. These people can donate their organs because their organs are working, they are the only brain dead. Unfortunately, the number of brain deaths in our country contributing to organ donation is still very small, maybe less than 5 percent. Although the laws are very clear on this, it’s just the attitude of the people to understand and come forward and donate from their dear and near ones who suffered brain death. So this is a major challenge in our country.

Latest Innovations in the Context of Kidney transplant

The most important development in kidney transplant is the surgical techniques that have evolved over the last few years. Moreover, now we also have a surgical robot which can help the surgeon to perform the surgery and are even becoming very popular these days, Advantages of robot trans-planters are that you have very little blood loss or blood loss is almost nil, also there is less pain and a better wound cleaning. So robot-assisted kidney transplant is one of the major developments which has happened. The availability of medications is another area where we scored the development, medications which sustained the function of kidney and help the kidney to function for a longer time.

Making Kidney transplant affordable

The cost is the major factor, it would be of great help to the patients if the cost of these immunosuppressive medications can be bought down which are used after transplantation to sustain the life of the kidneys. As they need to take these immunosuppressive medications for a very long time as long as the kidney functions.

Source: Economics Times

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