India’s First Three-way Swap Liver Transplant Chain At Medanta Saves Three Lives

Gurgaon, December 22 (TNA) In a rare feat, the Medanta Liver Transplant Team successfully performed the country’s first three-way liver transplant swap, or paired exchange, in which three patients suffering from terminal liver disease simultaneously received life-saving liver transplants. The lead surgeons for the three transplants were Dr. AS Soin, Dr. Amit Rastogi and Dr. Prashant Bhangui, respectively.

This three-way swap is a heart-warming tale of how three complete strangers – Sanjeev Kapoor, a businessman from Madhya Pradesh, Saurabh Gupta, a businessman from Uttar Pradesh, and Aadesh Kaur, a homemaker from Delhi – shared common destinies.

They were all ill with terminal liver failure, each needing an urgent liver transplant to survive but too unwell to wait for an organ on the deceased donor list which could have taken up to a year.

The three patients had willing liver donors within their families, but none were a suitable match. They had all given up hope till the Medanta Liver Transplant Team planned this never-before simultaneous swap surgery that gave all three another shot at life.

Dr Amit Rastogi, senior liver transplant surgeon at Medanta, said, “Performing three liver transplants means six simultaneous liver surgeries. This is a mammoth undertaking requiring many skilled surgeons, enough trained staff and operating rooms, and a fair exchange in which all donors have equally safe surgeries. It also requires all recipients to be well matched for their severity of illness, and have equally good, expected outcomes. No wonder, this procedure has never been done before. Our success will now pave the way for increasing the living donor pool in future with more such paired exchange transplants.”