Fellow leads team in first awake kidney transplant with overnight hospital stay

In May, transplant surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, Kidney transplantation was performed while the patient was awake with only spinal anesthesia.similar to those used during caesarean sections.

Dr. Vinayak Rohan, FACS, and his anesthesia and surgical support team successfully completed the transplant within two hours. In the first experiment, kidney recipients were monitored for 23 hours and discharged from the hospital the next day. This patient was identified as the best candidate for awake surgery due to his age and lack of risk factors, and he reported no pain during the procedure. Both the recipient, 28-year-old Chicago resident John Nicholas, and the donor, a childhood friend of Nicholas's, remain in good health.

The success of this awake surgery could be a step toward increasing access to transplantation and shortening hospital stays for patients at high risk for general anesthesia.

“We feel this is the next era in moving kidney transplants from major surgery to a 23-hour observation period to accelerate recovery at the transplant site,” said Satish Nadig, director of Northwestern Medical Research Institute. said M.D., FACS Director. transplant center.

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