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Doctors Transplant Same Kidney Twice In Two Weeks

kkleiner writes "Twenty-seven-year-old Ray Fearing suffered from focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a common type of kidney disease, and needed a new kidney. His 24-year-old sister, Cera Fearing, wanted to give him hers. The transplanted kidney immediately began to grow diseased, so doctors removed it. But then something happened that, according to the doctor who performed the procedure, had never been done before. The unhealthy kidney was removed from Ray, and replanted into another patient, and the kidney became healthy and has remained in this second patient ever since."

17 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Re:uHHH.. by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Doctor: We don't have any kidney's available but we have this diseased and rejected kidney in the fridge. Intrested?

    If you're going to receive a transplant, it's best to get an organ with broad experience.

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  2. Re:Get me a hammer! by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know that there is a always far more demand then availability.
    No matter what happens it probably saved a life.

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    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  3. this is a good strategy for all transplants by bitt3n · · Score: 4, Funny

    get one patient to reject the kidney, and then, while the it's still depressed, another patient gets the kidney on the rebound.

  4. Most Importantly by Thinine · · Score: 5, Informative

    His sister is hot.

    1. Re:Most Importantly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I bet the click through rate on the article just quadrupled thanks to this 4 word post.

  5. Re:Get me a hammer! by sco08y · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know that there is a always far more demand then availability.
    No matter what happens it probably saved a life.

    There's an adequate supply, it's just illegal to sell organs.

  6. Re:Get me a hammer! by Morty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the assumption was that the brother's disease, which was genetic, was causing problems with the new kidney. But because $recipient2 did not have that disease, if transplanted to $recipient2's body, the kidney would recover and work correctly. A genetic disease not present in the kidney should not follow the kidney. The actual results would vindicate that theory.

  7. It's that old saying by cvtan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Kidney once, shame on you. Kidney twice, shame on me.

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  8. Re:Get me a hammer! by clang_jangle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You are correct -- the value of this is the discovery that when an organ is diseased it may be a symptom of a greater problem. It actually seems pretty obvious when you think about it.

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    Caveat Utilitor
  9. Re:Get me a hammer! by wisnoskij · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think that is the fear at all, I think the fear is that people will have their organs stolen while they are alive.
    People get killed for their couple hundred dollar iPads, if a healthy person has dozens of saleable organs then they could be worth 10s of thousands of dollars.

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    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  10. Ports by lannocc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just goes to show that human-parts package management should be treated like a BSD Ports or Gentoo Portage installation; you need to take the entire system into consideration when looking at changes.

  11. Why wasn't it returned? by countach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why didn't the girl get the kidney back? I can understand her willing to give it up for her brother, but not for some random person.

    1. Re:Why wasn't it returned? by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 4, Informative

      They removed the kidney from her brother because they believed it was already broken. So, they instead transplanted it to the desperate 67 year old guy who prefered getting a diseased kidney, hoping it could extend his life for a little bit, instead of passing it to a perfecly healthy person, which might put her life in jeopardy.

      Or so I believe.

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    2. Re:Why wasn't it returned? by EdwinFreed · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Substantial risk understates the situation if anything. The fact is removing a kidney is a pretty big deal whereas putting one into someone is a lot simpler. This is because they put transplanted kidneys into the lower abdomen inside the muscle layer but outside the peritoneal wall. (The old failed or failing kidneys are only removed if absolutely necessary.) Removing a kidney, OTOH, means going through the abdomen to the other side. Even though it's done laparoscopically, it's still fairly traumatic, to the point where altruistic donors (that's what they are called) have a significantly worse time of it than the recipient in the first couple of weeks post-transplant. Because of this, there is no way in hell any remotely competent surgeon would agree to put back a kidney they are sure she doesn't need so soon after the original procedure. (Donors undergo extensive testing before such procedures. And it's actually surgeons plural, since reattaching blood vessels and hooking up ureters are actually different specialties.)

      For that matter, they would not have removed the transplanted kidney from the original recipient were it not for the small matter that according to the article, it was killing him. (When a transplanted kidney fails and another transplant is done they don't remove it unless absolutely necessary, with the result that someone can end up with four or more kidneys.) So they were going to end up with a kidney and no place to put it. Rather than toss it in the garbage, my guess is they started calling people at the top of the list who were type compatible until they found one willing to give it a go.

      I'll also point out that one of the side benefits of being a donor is that in the unlikely event that your remaining kidney fails, you automatically go to the top of the transplant list. And in most cases 100% of the donor's costs are paid for.

  12. Re:Get me a hammer! by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just don't break any traffic laws and you'll be fine.

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    ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
  13. Re:Get me a hammer! by sco08y · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because that libertarian attitude every one should be able to enter any contract he wishes without restriction doesn't account for the realities of power play in this world.

    The realities of power are that really rich people, right now, can fly to countries to get organs from desperate people. So all we're really doing is exporting the problem.

    The reality of medicine is that being put on a donor waiting list is a death sentence for the "99%".

    And the reality of organ transplants is that most people suffer organ failure due to poor health, poor diet and smoking / drug abuse. You probably see more poor and middling people, per capita, needing organ transplants because wealthy people take better care of their bodies.

    Only desperate people would sell their organs for money.

    So it's better that they simply remain desperate? They don't seem to think so. Do they get a say in the matter? Freedom of choice? My body, not the government's? Does that only apply to abortion?

    Allowing people to sell organs would give very rich people with organ failure an incentive to make the life of potential donors hell.

    Sure, that would make perfect sense if rich people were all part of some vast conspiracy. In reality, any sane person, rich or poor, has every incentive to avoid hugely invasive surgery, and as much as people don't want to be donors, they want to be recipients even less.

  14. Re:Get me a hammer! by sco08y · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Selling/buying them is illegal so there are very few buyers. Make it legal, and the demand and number of places you could offload goes through the roof.

    Um, how? Is there anything that could possibly be easier to trace than human organs? I mean, they're already stamped, in every single cell, with DNA. How in God's name could you fence stolen organs?

    And if there are doctors willing to do it without running the checks, what's stopping them from doing it now?