The rate of survival for a patient, who was a recipient in cadaver transplant, is 65 percent as compared to that of a patient receiving organ from a live donor, said doctors at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital.
Denying newspaper reports that blamed the government hospital for conducting the surgery in an operation theatre that was not adequately sterile, the hospital officials said they had been conducting similar surgeries since 2008. Though, two patients who recieved organs from a 42-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man from Arakkonam had died, many people are surviving.
Doctors explained that one of the recipients died due to excessive bleeding post operation while the other died due to low blood pressure. They denied that the patients had any infection.
The doctors in RGGGH said out of the 126 cadaver organ transplants performed so far about 93 of the patients are still alive while 33 have died. In that 15 of them died after a year following the transplant and 18 patients died within a year post surgery.
“Cadaver transplant and transplants from live donor are different surgeries. The rate of survival when an organ is harvested from a live donor is better than that from a cadaver. Especially kidneys, when harvested from cadaver takes a long time to function. There were cases when it had taken three months to function in a body post transplant surgery. One of the patients died on Sunday afternoon,” said Jayaraman, urologist, RGGGH, who performed the transplant surgery.
He also said there is also a risk for these recipients of developing infections, including TB, obesity, fractures and severe diabetes, post surgery as they take immuno-suppressants, which reduce their immunity. Doctors said at least 240 people, including both live and cadaver recipients, come for a follow up and to get immuno-suppressant drugs every Wednesday.
A press release also said last year, a budget of about Rs 31 lakh was allocated by the State government for the immuno-suppressant drugs while Rs 22 lakh had been allocated for the first six months this year.
The release added that the hospital had a sterile operation theatre and that the team performing the surgery had an experience of over three decades. It said that the hospital maintained a record of all transplants and post surgery follow up of patients as against reports that said it did not have any records.