Hue hospital carries out first kidney autotransplant in Central Vietnam

On July 7, the hospital announced that its medical team was successful in carrying out a kidney autotransplant on Phan Thi Minh P., a 50-year-old female patient from Tam Ky City, Quang Nam Province.

This was the first surgery of its kind to be carried out in Hue Central Hospital and also the first in Central Vietnam.

The patient was admitted to the hospital’s Department of Nephrology - Urology and Thoracic - Cardiology with complete atrophy of the entire right ureter, while the kidney on the same side had been equipped with drainage support.

She had undergone multiple surgeries from July last year on her right ureter, including an open surgery to drain her right kidney. Every month, the patient has had to be re-examined to replace the renal drainage support device until this June.

At the Hue Central Hospital, doctors conducted an examination on her and determined that this case was a complete loss of ureter after multiple surgeries, but the right kidney above it was very good, equivalent to the opposite one.

After consulting, Prof., Dr. Pham Nhu Hiep, Director of Hue Central Hospital, has directed his staff to perform a kidney autotransplant on the patient to retain her right kidney. This is a rather difficult case because the patient has had many surgeries causing fibrosis. In addition, computerised tomography results showed that the patient's right kidney had two arteries and two veins.

The operation lasted for six hours, as doctors took the patient’s right kidney and transplanted it into the left pelvis, in addition to reconnecting kidney blood vessels to the outer pelvic blood vessels, together with reshaping the ureter by the Boari bladder flap (partially using urinary bladder to reshape the ureter).

Currently, the patient's health is in a stable condition and she is likely to be discharged within the next few days.

Prof. Dr. Pham Nhu Hiep said that the success of the first autologous kidney transplantation in the hospital and the whole central region as well is attributed by the experience from of nearly 1,000 kidney transplants from living donors at the Hue Central Hospital, thus creating a premise for the medical facility to perform autologous kidney transplants for other patients in the future.