Native Kidney Biopsy

Live Related Transplantation

Renal transplantation program began in 1979. However initially we were heavily dependent upon surgical skills of friends from McMaster University, Canada and a few other Indian friends. Our first team was trained in 1979. Initial program was erratic and we did not have good results measured in terms of graft and patient survival.

As we moved in to the new premises in 1992, we consolidated our efforts towards improving upon our skills and quality care. Our initial transplantation program had about 40 transplants a year. We had a major breakthrough in 1998 with our research translated in to clinic. It was actually encouraging tips from Prof.

Thomas Starzl and Prof. John Dossetor in 1996 which geared us towards better performance. Today, we can boast to have one of the best transplantation programs of the world and we are pioneers in achieving prope tolerance (achievement of early stable graft function with minimum / no acute rejection episodes using very low dose and minimum number of immunosuppressants) and robust tolerance in renal transplantation.

Deceased Donor Organ Transplantation

Cadaver transplantation has always been the express need of Indian patients for a very long time. Patients with end stage renal disease now being identified at an alarming rate of 150 new patients per million every year; are ever increasing in the long waiting lists of patients in need of organs for transplantation.

The reasons are numerous, ranging from genuine non-availability of donors from the families to inherited diseases to non-willing members of the family to donate kidney. The Human Organs Transplantation Act was passed by the Indian parliament in 1994. This act provided the new legal definition of brain death.

Health is state matter therefore the legislative assembly of Gujarat state adopted this legislation 1997. This allowed us to establish renal cadaver transplantation program. So far we have performed 326 cadaver renal transplants.

Transplantation Program for Foreigners

Stella Mimano, a young African woman aged 32 years contacted the institute after reading about Dr. H.L.Trivedi and his work through the internet. She was impressed with his research on “tolerance”.

She underwent renal transplantation at the institute on 12th November 2000 and went back soon to Nairobi, Kenya after achieving stable graft function on low dose immunosuppression. Word spread in whole of Kenya that there is a center in Ahmedabad, India which gives very good services and excellent results with transplantation.

The cost of Rs. 3,50,000/- (in Indian currency) was amazingly low for them as compared to a transplant worth around US $ 10,000/- at other centers in the world where they had to stay on high dose immunosuppression all their life!

Thus we embarked upon an active transplantation program initiated by an African lady. So far we have transplanted approximately 45 patients from outside India since 2000, most of them belonging to Kenya. We also have treated patients from Uganda, Nigeria and non-resident Indians from U.S., Italy, Dubai and African countries.

We are happy to state that we have been very successful by and large not only in transplanting them but with our tolerance induction protocol, most of them are living a very good quality of life with minimum/no immunosuppression! The prerequisite for foreign patients is that they should bring a donor from their own country and bring the permission of their government authority for transplantation at our center.

We are also having transplantation programme with standard triple immunosuppression. We have a programme of Paired Kidney Transplantation and ABO Incompatible Renal Transplantation.