Controversial Kidney Transplant Technique Could Help The Very
Ill Surgeons who successfully performed kidney transplants after
removing small cancerous and benign masses from the donated
organs have published their results in the December issue of the
urology journal BJUI. “Transplanting a living donor kidney which
has been affected by a renal mass is controversial and
considered a high risk,” says co-author Dr Michael W Phelan.
“However, the ongoing shortage of organs from deceased donors,
and the high risk of dying while waiting for a transplant,
prompted five donors and recipients to push ahead with surgery
after the small masses were found in the donor kidneys.” The
five renal masses, which were discovered during routine donor
evaluation, ranged from 1 to 2.3 cm in size. Cancerous cells
were found in three of the five masses and the other two were
benign. The kidneys were removed from the donors, put on ice and
taken to the recipients’ operating rooms. Surgeons carefully
removed the renal mass and a porti