Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, has successfully performed what it describes as North India’s first four-way paired kidney transplant, connecting four patients and four living donors from Delhi, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir and Nagaland.
The transplant exchange enabled four patients to receive compatible kidneys even though they could not undergo direct transplantation from their intended family donors because of blood-group or immunological incompatibility. The procedure, carried out on 13 July, involved eight surgeries on the same day — four donor kidney removal procedures and four kidney transplants. Five operating theatres functioned simultaneously, with the surgeries beginning in the morning and concluding by evening.
The four-way exchange connected Tsutsangla Pongen, 34, from Nagaland; Abdul Rouf Bhat, 47, from Jammu & Kashmir; Shivani Khurana, 46, from Delhi; and Law Bahadur, 34, from Bihar. Each had a willing family donor, but direct transplantation was not possible because of antibodies, immunological incompatibility or blood-group mismatch.
After detailed blood-group testing, HLA typing, cross-matching and immunological assessment, the donor-recipient chain was arranged so that Varun Khurana donated to Tsutsangla Pongen, Arikokba Pongen donated to Law Bahadur, Nidhi Kumari donated to Abdul Rouf Bhat, and Nazneen Rehman Bhat donated to Shivani Khurana. Software from the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation was also used to help identify compatible matches.
Prof. (Dr.) Dinesh Khullar, Group Chairman, Department of Nephrology & Renal Transplant Medicine at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, said paired kidney exchange can provide another option for patients who have willing donors but cannot undergo direct transplantation because of compatibility barriers. Prof. (Dr.) Anant Kumar, Chairman, Department of Urology & Kidney Transplantation, highlighted the detailed coordination required to perform several linked donor and transplant procedures simultaneously.
The complex exchange also required extensive documentation and regulatory approval, including an appeal to the Delhi High Court. According to the hospital, all four kidney recipients and all four donors recovered well and were discharged after the procedures. The milestone highlights how paired kidney exchange programmes can expand living-donor transplant options for patients whose relatives are willing to donate but are not medically compatible with them.
