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NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2009
MEDICINE
Eight kidneys transplanted between four states
Donor Pamela Paulk, 55, of Baltimore, Md., embraces surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery Tuesday, July 7 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md. Montgomery said he and doctors in three other hospitals completed the largest series of kidney paired donation procedures ever undertaken.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY AARON MORRISON
Associated Press
BALTIMORE - A transplant surgeon who completed an unprecedented eight-way kidney swap this week said Tuesday he believed such intricate, multistate exchanges could drastically reduce the number of patients waiting for eligible donors.
Dr. Robert Montgomery, chief transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and doctors at four hospitals in four states transplanted eight kidneys over three weeks in what he called the largest chain of donations in history.
"We finally beat the 'Grey's Anatomy' record for domino transplants," Montgomery joked at a news conference hours after the last in a series of surgeries was completed Monday night. "We hope this creates a movement that encourages other transplant centers to adopt the model we used."
The donor pool in the United States could facilitate 1,500 transplants per year if transplant centers nationwide participated in computer modeling that matches donors with recipients. Montgomery said.
Multiple-kidney transplants occur when several people who need transplants have friends or relatives who are willing to donate kidneys but aren't compatible. A chain of surgeries is arranged in which each donor is matched with a transplant candidate who they don't know but is compatible with the kidney being given up. The chain of transplants typically also involve a so-called altruistic donor, who's willing to give a kidney to anyone and is located through a database.
Ten doctors performed 16 surgeries on the eight donors and eight recipients at Hopkins, Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, INTEGRIS Baptist Memorial Center in Oklahoma City and
Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Recipients and donors were equally delighted to be part of unique procedure.
Surgeons at John Hopkins transplanted six kidneys simultaneously in April 2008 and performed a quintuple transplant in 2006. They have also completed several triple transplants.
POLITICS
Iranian President says the re-count proves legitimacy
TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday sought to put the turmoil over the disputed presidential elections behind him and declared on national television that the contests were clean, fair and marked the start of a new era.
His speech came as the country's top three reformist leaders sought to rekindle their opposition movement, demanding that ruling clerics end the heavy "security atmosphere"imposed after the elections and free those detained in the unrest, according to an opposition Web site.
It was Ahmadinejad's first national speech since the supreme leader declared the election results valid despite outcry from the other candidates and weeks of street protests claiming that the results were fraudulent.
"It was the most clean and free election in the world," he said, adding that during the re-count "no fault was discovered. The whole nation understood this."