Fudan Pediatrics Completed Parent Kidney Transplantation, Grandma in Sixty Donates Kidney to Save Grandma Sun | Xiaoting | Fudan
My grandmother, who is in her sixties, donated a kidney to her 14-year-old grandson. One week after the surgery, she was successfully discharged from the hospital today. Her grandson, Xiaoting, is also gradually recovering from a kidney transplant and will be discharged soon. The reporter learned from the National Children's Medical Center and the Affiliated Pediatric Hospital of Fudan University that on June 6th, with the joint efforts of the kidney transplant team and the multidisciplinary team of the entire hospital, the hospital successfully completed the first living relative kidney transplant of this year.
Xiaoting was diagnosed with Alport syndrome several years ago. Experts explained that this is a kind of hereditary kidney disease characterized by hematuria, sensorineural deafness, eye lesions and progressive renal dysfunction, with a incidence rate of 1/5000-1/10000.
In the past month or so, the child has entered the stage of uremia, accompanied by complications such as hyperkalemia, metabolic acidosis, anemia, etc., and urgently needs renal replacement therapy such as dialysis or kidney transplantation. After sufficient communication between the pediatric hospital's kidney transplant team and family members, a thorough pre transplant evaluation was conducted for Xiaoting's relevant family members. After strict ethical review, it was finally decided to adopt a "living relative kidney transplant" to avoid excessive dialysis. The sixty year old grandmother matched the transplant requirements and firmly stated, "I want to save my grandson."
One week before surgery, with the coordination and organization of functional departments such as the medical department and nursing department, Grandma was admitted to the nephrology ward of the pediatric hospital and underwent preoperative evaluation and examination according to the established plan. After further interdisciplinary discussions, the perioperative management plan has been determined.
On the morning of the 6th, grandma held Xiaoting's hand, her eyes filled with love, "Baby is not afraid, we'll see you later.". That morning, the kidney donated by my grandmother was successfully transplanted into my grandson Xiaoting's body. The surgery went very smoothly, and the next day both grandparents and grandchildren were transferred from the intensive care unit back to the regular ward.
It is reported that Fudan Pediatrics is the only pediatric specialty hospital in Shanghai that has the qualifications for heart, liver, and kidney transplantation, and is also the only national children's medical center that has obtained this qualification. Both live relative liver transplantation and live relative kidney transplantation have obtained qualification access.
As early as 2004, Fudan Pediatrics collaborated with well-known domestic organ transplant institutions such as Huashan Hospital, Zhongshan Hospital, and Changhai Hospital to carry out pediatric kidney transplantation. Starting from 2011, we have further expanded our cooperation to multiple organ transplantation centers in Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, and other places. In 2016, the "China Children's Kidney Transplantation Management Expert Collaboration Group" was established as the lead. Currently, a mature management process of "pre transplant evaluation transplant registration post transplant follow-up standards" has been established, and the establishment of a multidisciplinary management model for children's kidney transplantation has been actively promoted.
The data shows that the pediatric hospital's kidney transplant team led by Professor Liu Feng and Professor Chen Rui from the Department of Renal Transplantation, as well as Professor Xu Hong and Professor Shen Qian from the Department of Nephrology, has followed up on nearly 400 kidney transplant patients, with a 5-year survival rate of 97.9%, reaching the international advanced level. Since 2023, 25 pediatric kidney transplant surgeries have been completed.
Professor Xu Hong, the head of the Department of Pediatric Nephrology at Fudan University, introduced that many cases of kidney transplantation in children are quite challenging, such as single kidney transplantation allocated by low weight donors to young children; Highly sensitized children who failed their first transplant; Twins and brothers with uremia, among others, ultimately managed to overcome their life difficulties with the help of the National Children's Medical Center.
To alleviate the economic pressure on families of kidney transplant recipients, with the support of the hospital's Ministry of Social Work, charitable projects such as the Shanghai Children's Chronic Renal Failure Assistance Fund and the Longhua Ancient Temple Pediatric Kidney Disease Fund have also provided love and assistance to families of kidney transplant recipients, reducing their financial burden.
It is reported that Fudan Pediatrics will once again climb the medical peak and plan to carry out kidney transplantation and multi organ combined transplantation for young recipients in the near future. It will launch the "Advanced Collaborative Training Program for Comprehensive Management of Kidney Transplantation in Children", establish a nationwide two-way referral platform and training mechanism for children with chronic kidney failure, and promote standardized management of kidney transplantation in children in China.
