Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Science & Medicine

By staff and wire services

Doctors at four hospitals in four states transplanted eight kidneys over three weeks in what is called the largest chain of donations in history.

One of the kidneys was transplanted and another removed at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

This record-setting swap involved eight pairs of people, each made up of one person in need of a kidney and one willing to donate to them, but whose blood or tissue type was incompatible.

The first transplant took place on June 15 in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins. The final implant took place at the same site on Monday.

Doctors hope that such paired kidney transplants will help ease the shortage of transplant organs.

"There are many institutions that do living donor transplants, but there are so many people on the waiting list," says Dr. Surendra Shenoy, kidney transplant surgeon at Barnes and Washington University School of Medicine. "Through this domino exchange, we want to set a national model."

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