Strickland, donor doing well after kidney transplant surgeries

Strickland, donor doing well after kidney transplant surgeries

By Kristi L. Nelson (Contact)
Originally published 02:30 p.m., March 27, 2009

Both Knox County Commission Chairman Thomas "Tank" Strickland and kidney donor Beverly Mulholland are doing "very well" after transplant surgery Friday, said doctors at University of Tennessee Medical Center's Transplant Center.

The first 24 hours are critical, as medical staff will measure urine output and do bloodwork to determine how well the kidneys are filtering toxins from the urine, said Chris Wingard, director of transplant for the center.

It was the 889th kidney transplant - the 10th this year - for the region's only transplant center, which opened in 1985.

Transplant surgeon Dr. Mitchell Goldman called the two-hour surgery "very routine" and said the kidney began to make urine immediately when it was transplanted into Strickland. He said Strickland will be in the hospital five to seven days.

Mulholland also is doing well and should go home in three or four days, said transplant surgeon Dr. Oscar Grandas, who removed Mulholland's kidney. Grandas said that because doctors opted to use the right kidney, both surgeries were done with open incisions, instead of laproscopically. Surgery to remove a kidney from a living donor is done laproscopically about half of the time now, he said.

Recovery time for both will take six to eight weeks, with incision pain the first two weeks, Grandas said. Goldman said Strickland should avoid people for a few weeks, to lessen his risk of infection.

Strickland and Mulholland were strangers until she overheard Strickland at a church event talking to someone about his need for a kidney transplant. She volunteered to donate one of her kidneys; tests showed she was a match. Strickland's insurance will pay Mulholland's medical expenses.

Almost 100 people turned out Thursday at an early morning prayer meeting and outpouring of support for Strickland and Mulholland at the City County Building.

"She is definitely a child of God. I know without a doubt the operation will be a success because God has been involved from the beginning," Strickland said in a statement read at the prayer meeting.

Six of the 28 surgeries the UT transplant center did last year came from living donors.

"We wish they were more common," Wingard said. "We at UTMC are really pushing living donations. We expect living donors to make up about 60 percent of our transplants" eventually, rather than the 40 percent they make up now.

Wingard said one-year outcomes are similar whether recipients' kidneys come from living or deceased donors, but the outcomes after five years are dramatically better for those whose have living donors: about an 88 percent survival rate, compared to a 75 percent to 80 percent survival rate for those whose kidneys come from deceased donors. Kidneys from deceased donors typically last three to eight years, while kidneys from living donors can last 10 to 20 years "or more," he said.

"We know people who get kidneys from living donors function better and last longer," Wingard said.

More than 79,000 people nationally - 1,775 in Tennessee alone - are waiting for a donated kidney. Strickland had been on the waiting list since August 2008 and had undergone dialysis three times a week for the past 15 months.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/mar/27/strickland-kidney-donor-out-of-surgery/