Orlando surgeon among first to perform one-cut kidney transplant

Orlando surgeon among first to perform one-cut kidney transplant

Robyn Shelton | Sentinel Medical Writer
September 9, 2008

An Orlando surgeon took out Patty Ewers' kidney last month through a single incision -- down from the five small cuts that usually are needed.

It was the first time Florida Hospital transplant surgeon Thomas Chin had attempted the operation through a sole, 2-inch cut across the belly button. The goal is to help donors recover more quickly with less pain.

"My feeling is that if someone is generous enough to donate a kidney, we should do everything we can to make it as easy on them as possible," said Chin, who also heads the hospital's liver-transplant program.

Earlier this year, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio reported that they were the first to remove kidneys with the one-cut approach.

Chin has done the operation once more since Ewers' surgery in mid-August, putting him among the first to master it in the United States.

Doctors already use minimally invasive techniques to recover kidneys from living donors, often working through four small incisions and pulling the fist-size organ out through a fifth. They use long, thin instruments and a camera that provides an inside view.

In the single-incision approach, the tools and camera must go through the same small cut across the belly button.

"It's not that radically different for the surgeon," said Chin, who has done hundreds of the operations. "But it's a little bit different view and different placement of the instruments."

For now, he plans to limit the operation to certain patients. It might be more difficult, for example, on people who are overweight or when the donated kidney is on the right side and the surgeon has to maneuver under the liver to reach it.

Ewers hesitated at first when Chin talked about doing the procedure on her for the first time. Now, with her scar nearly swallowed by her belly button, she is grateful for the option.

Her kidney went to her husband, Dave, who suffers from polycystic kidney disease.

The hereditary condition keeps the kidneys from effectively filtering waste and removing extra water from the blood. He had been going to thrice-weekly dialysis for years.

Three weeks after his transplant, Dave Ewers said he is doing well.

"I can't say enough about what this means to me that [my wife] was able to give me a kidney," said Ewers, 56, a former truck driver. "She's a pioneer, basically, with this new procedure -- and my hero."

Robyn Shelton can be reached at rshelton@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5487.

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