Couples swap kidneys in region's first procedure of its kindBy Keith Darcé
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
12:13 p.m. August 24, 2009
Doctors at UCSD Medical Center have performed the county's first paired donor kidney transplants, which involved two patients who received organs from each other's spouses.
Organ procedures entailing multiple donor and recipient couples have been done for several years in other parts of the United States, and they're becoming more common as kidney donor networks try to develop new methods for matching donor-recipient pairs.
In the UCSD case, Patti Ford, 50, of San Carlos, received a kidney from Robyn Bryan, 44, of Escondido. Ford's husband, Patrick, 42, gave one of his healthy kidneys to Bryan's husband, Paul, 50.
All four surgeries occurred Wednesday at the UCSD medical campus in Hillcrest. The couples discussed the surgeries Monday morning during a news conference at the hospital.
Patti Ford had been on the national kidney transplant waiting list for four years. She was receiving dialysis treatments three times a week for the past 15 months.
Paul Bryan was on the transplant waiting list for six months and was weeks away from having to start dialysis treatments.
In both cases, the sick spouse's blood type was incompatible with that of the healthy spouse.
All four people are doing fine after the surgeries, their physicians said.
UCSD officials said the hospital will soon join one of a few national networks set up in recent years to create donor pairings through computer databases.
Keith Darce: (619) 293-1020; keith.darce@uniontrib.com
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/24/bn24kidneys12132/
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