International kidney paired donation transplantations to increase kidney transplant of O group and highly sensitized patient: First report from India

AIM: To report the first international living related two way kidney paired donation (KPD) transplantation from India which occurred on 17(th) February 2015 after legal permission from authorization committee. METHODS: Donor recipient pairs were from Portugal and India who were highly sensitized and ABO incompatible with their spouse respectively. The two donor recipient pairs had negative lymphocyte cross-matching, flow cross-match and donor specific antibody in two way kidney exchange with the intended KPD donor. Local KPD options were fully explored for Indian patient prior to embarking on international KPD. RESULTS: Both pairs underwent simultaneous uneventful kidney transplant surgeries and creatinine was 1 mg/dL on tacrolimus based immunosuppression at 11 mo follow up. The uniqueness of these transplantations was that they are first international KPD transplantations in our center. CONCLUSION: International KPD will increases quality and quantity of living donor kidney transplantation. This could be an important step to solving the kidney shortage with additional benefit of reduced costs, improved quality and increased access for difficult to match incompatible pairs like O blood group patient with non-O donor and sensitized patient. To the best of our knowledge this is first international KPD transplantation from India.