The successful Chicago medical procedure was immediately followed by a six-way paired exchange at the John Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, the largest paired exchange in renal medical history.
The complex medical procedure was performed within 12 hours in three operating rooms with 32 doctors, nurses and medical staff involved, Dr. Joseph Leventhal told the Chicago Tribune. Leventhal is the director of Northwestern's Living Donor Kidney Transplant Program.
The series of kidney donations was initiated by Doug Penrod, a nurse at Northwestern, who donated his kidney, which triggered other organ donations.
The success of the two kidney transplant series had prompted officials of the two hospitals to push for a national program to have more paired kidney donor exchanges. With linked surgeries, 2,000 more kidneys would likely be available for transplant.
Kidney surgeons across the U.S. made 16,000 kidney transplant procedures in 2007, with 6,000 kidney coming from living donors.
