Coimbatore doctor works on online registry for kidney exchange

COIMBATORE: A month after the city saw its first three-way kidney exchange, a city-based nephrologist is working on setting up a registry for the same.
It will serve as an online platform where kidney donors and recipients, in need of a kidney transplant, can register themselves in the hope of finding another pair who are compatible with them. Many kidney patients have a relative willing to donate but can’t due to mismatched blood group or in-compatibility due to HLA antibodies.
Kidney and pancreas transplant specialist at Kovai Medical Centre and Hospital Dr V Mangalakumar is setting up a registry -- www.c-star.in, where kidney failure patients and their willing donors (near relative) can register as pair. “The number of brain dead donors becoming available are too small a fraction, compared to the requirement. In KMCH alone, we have more than 200 patients waiting for a kidney,” he said. “Thus, live kidney transplant becomes the best option. However, many patients’ have donors from different blood groups. Sometimes, the blood group might match, but the recipient might have HLA antibodies which will attack and eventually reject the donated kidney,” he said. “If they don’t get a kidney, which is blood group matched and without any HLA antibody issues, they remain on dialysis for life,” he added.
While blood group incompatible transplants (ABO incompatible) and HLA antibody incompatible transplants can be done, by a process called desensitization, it becomes extremely expensive and increases risk of infections, bleeding and eventually organ rejection. “A transplant which now costs Rs 5 lakh to Rs 5.5 lakh, will cost double if we have to go for blood group incompatible transplantation,” he added.
This registry will initially be available only to kidney transplant patients who have willing kidney donors, who are first-degree relatives like parents, siblings, spouse and grandparents, based in Coimbatore. “I and other nephrologists, from the other major hospitals in the city, have been discussing this and they agreed with the idea,” said Dr Mangalakumar.
The city witnessed two-way exchange done by Dr Gowtham who also feels that this programme needs to be expanded further. By involving more hospitals, we will be able to increase the donor pool and increase the chance of finding a matching donor. “While people can register on the website, only doctors can access to see all the available donors and their medical particulars,” he added. “Once we find two pairs, who can exchange the donated kidneys, based on objective criteria’s, we can contact the other pair’s doctor and inform the families. Once the registry is streamlined in Coimbatore and the practical issues are sorted, we can extend it to other cities,” he added.