A 6.6 pound baby girl sadly suffered irreparable brain damage in the womb, but for the first time in Britain, surgeons were able to transplant her kidneys, which were transplanted into a patient with renal failure, and liver cells, which were donated to a second recipient who had liver damage.
Doctors tried to revive the baby, but she was unable to breathe without the help of a life-support machine, said Gaurav Atreja of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust at the Hammersmith Hospital in London, according to The Independent. The baby’s parents agreed to turn off support and donate her organs via the National Organ Retrieval Service
“Because the brain never recovered even after being on the life-support machine for six days, it was very clear that she was not going to make it,” Dr Atreja said. “She didn’t show any improvement whatsoever with brain function. It was technically quite difficult to recover small organs from such a small baby but we managed to do it. The whole process made the grieving journey easier for the parents.”
The transplant took place last summer, but the success of the procedure has shown that organs from babies can be used successfully in similar situations, which could help relieve the prominent need for more access to organs for donations.
“This case has set a milestone in the care of newborns in the UK. A significant proportion of babies who die in neonatal units are potential organ donors,” doctors said. “We hope that neonatal units across the UK will actively start thinking about this noble cause, which makes the grieving family’s journey easier and has the potential to transform another life,” they added.
Developments with surgeries like this one could make a huge difference for the many people around the world who are wait for donations and die as a result of a lack of resources.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
