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Rare six-way kidney transplant chain under way at San Francisco hospital | |
(4 months later) | |
Doctors at a San Francisco hospital began an unusual series of kidney transplants on Thursday with six living donors providing organs to six patients in a chain that began with a woman described as an altruistic donor unrelated to any of the recipients. | |
The first donor and recipient went into surgery at California Pacific medical center at 7.30am, with two more donor-recipient pairs on the schedule for Thursday, then the remaining three pairs on Friday, hospital spokesman Dean Fryer said. | |
The chain of donations began when Zully Broussard, 55, of Sacramento, whose son and husband both died of cancer, offered to donate a kidney to a friend, but the friend ultimately had to use another donor, according to hospital officials. | |
Still willing to donate, even to a stranger, Broussard was matched with a man from Benicia, California, triggering a domino effect. That man’s sister-in-law, who was not a match for him, agreed to donate her kidney to a Fresno woman, while her son, in turn, would be a donor for another woman, and on it went. | |
“I’m excited, not nervous,” Broussard told San Francisco’s KNTV news on the eve of surgery. “I know there’s going to be a life out there that’s extended. I feel like there is a higher power behind all this, making it happen. I didn’t realize it was so huge. I’m just a small part of the chain.“ | |
The six-way transplant involving a dozen people is the largest kidney swap in the 44-year history of California Pacific’s transplant center. In 2011, the hospital became the state’s first to do a five-way swap, Fryer said. | |
“It is just amazing that we’re able to create this large of a chain within a single hospital,” Fryer said. “You’ve got six people who now have a second chance at life.” |