HYDERABAD: Doctors at Osmania General Hospital (OGH) have scripted medical history by successfully performing what is being claimed as India’s first simultaneous five-organ (multivisceral) transplant on a single patient who was turned away by several private hospitals.
The marathon 36-hour surgery is being described by specialists as one of the most complex procedures in transplant medicine.
The achievement has also drawn the attention of the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), the apex body under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which on Wednesday sought detailed information from OGH about the landmark surgery.
The procedure was performed on a 30-year-old engineer from Rajanna Sircilla district who had been suffering from a rare, life-threatening gastrointestinal disorder that left him unable to digest food. For several years, he survived on intravenous nutritional support after multiple treatment attempts failed, leaving transplantation as his only chance of survival.
A multidisciplinary team led by Dr Ch Madhusudan, head of the Department of Surgical Gastroenterology and chief transplant surgeon at OGH, transplanted five organs — the stomach, duodenum, pancreas, small intestine and right colon — in a single operation that lasted nearly 36 hours.
Speaking to TNIE, Dr Madhusudan said, “The patient was admitted to OGH six months ago and placed on the Jeevandan organ transplant waiting list. Finding a suitable deceased donor was challenging because the procedure required not only blood group compatibility but also lymphocyte cross-matching. A donor was identified three months ago, but the organs were found to be unsuitable for transplantation.
Patient taken off ventilator support
The breakthrough came when a 35-year-old brain-dead woman, who suffered a severe brain haemorrhage following pregnancy-induced hypertension, became an organ donor after her family consented to donate her organs. The organs were retrieved, and the complex transplant was successfully performed. The patient has since been taken off ventilator support and is metabolically stable.”
Dr Madhusudan said the patient was recovering well, adding that multi-visceral transplantation is among the most complex surgical procedures in the world and has been performed only at a handful of specialised centres, primarily in the United States and Brazil.
NOTTO, in a post on X, described the surgery as a landmark achievement. It noted that it was the first five-organ multi-visceral transplant performed in an Indian government hospital and the first such procedure in the country for a patient with Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP).
The organisation lauded the dedication and expertise of the multidisciplinary transplant team and paid tribute to the organ donor and the donor’s family for their selfless decision, making the life-saving procedure possible. It said the milestone had renewed hope for patients and further strengthened India’s organ transplantation ecosystem.