WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A 28-year-old man underwent kidney transplant procedure at Northwestern Medicine without general anesthesia and got discharged in less than 24 hours.
'This is the first case at Northwestern Medicine where a patient was awake during an entire kidney transplant procedure and went home the next day, basically making this an outpatient procedure. Our hope is that awake kidney transplantation can decrease some of the risks of general anesthesia while also shortening a patient's hospital stay,' commented Satish Nadig, transplant surgeon and director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center.
John Nicholas has been suffering from kidney issues since he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of 16. Eventually, his kidney function declined and testing revealed an inflammation in the kidneys.
On May 24, he received a kidney from his childhood friend in an awake transplant procedure, which took less than two hours to complete.
Vicente Garcia Tomas, anesthesiologist and chief of regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine at the hospital, said, 'For John's case, we placed a spinal anesthesia shot in the operating room with a little bit of sedation for comfort. It was incredibly simple and uneventful, but allowed John to be awake for the procedure, improving the patient experience'.
The hospital said that Nicholas was a perfect candidate for the procedure due to 'his age, limited risk factors and eagerness to participate' in the cutting-edge kidney transplant.
'It was a pretty cool experience to know what was happening in real time and be aware of the magnitude of what they were doing,' said Nicholas.
Following the awake kidney transplant, Northwestern Medicine is planning to establish Accelerated Surgery Without General Anesthesia in Kidney Transplantation or AWAKE program for patients who can't have general anesthesia or have a high-risk of general anesthesia, or any other reasons.
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