Northwestern Medicine researchers perform kidney transplant on awake patient
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- The procedure used a single spinal anesthesia injection.
- The 28-year-old patient reported no pain during surgery and was released the next day.
Surgeons at Northwestern Medicine have performed the first kidney transplant in the U.S. in which the patient was awake during procedure, according to a press release from the hospital.
“To our knowledge, this is the first known case in the United States where a patient was awake during an entire kidney transplant procedure. Inside the operating room, it was an incredible experience being able to show a patient what their new kidney looked like before placing it inside the body,” Satish Nadig, MD, PhD, transplant surgeon and director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center, said in the release. “Our hope is that awake kidney transplantation can decrease some of the risks of general anesthesia while also shortening a patient’s hospital stay.”
The surgery was performed on May 24 by Nadig, Vinayak Rohan, MD, transplant surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and Vicente Garcia Tomas, MD, anesthesiologist and chief of regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and took less than 2 hours.
The procedure used a single spinal anesthesia injection, similar to what is used during a cesarean section, instead of standard general anesthesia, according to the press release.
“Doing anesthesia for the awake kidney transplant was easier than a C-section,” Tomas said in the release. He added, “Not only can awake kidney transplantation help patients who have risks or phobias to general anesthesia, but it can help shorten their hospital stay so they can recover more comfortably at home.”
The 28-year-old patient reported no pain during surgery and was released the next day. Researchers selected the patient due to young age and few risk factors, according to the release.
Northwestern Medicine plans to launch the Accelerated Surgery Without General Anesthesia in Kidney Transplantation (AWAKE) program for patients who cannot tolerate general anesthesia or have an elevated risk associated with it, the release noted.
Reference:
Northwestern Medicine surgeons perform awake kidney transplant with next day discharge. https://news.nm.org/northwestern-medicine-performs-the-first-known-awake-kidney-transplant-with-next-day-discharge/. Published June 24, 2024. Accessed June 25, 2024.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts