Cleveland, OH, US
Brad Kaster, a self-employed optometrist, will be ready to return to work in a little over a week. That's pretty surprising, since the average back-to-work timeline for a kidney donor is 51 days, and Brad donated his kidney to his father last week. His secret? A brand-new kidney removal procedure, which makes the entire operation possible with just one tiny incision.
In the new procedure, doctors remove the donor's kidney through his or her belly button. According to Kaster, the incision point ". . . is so tiny I'm not getting any pain from it. . . I can't even see it." Still, this tiny space is all the surgeons need to remove the donor's kidney. For the 80,000 Americans awaiting kidney transplants, this is very good news.
So far, only 10 donors have undergone the new procedure, but all of them have recovered well, with just a fraction of the pain previously associated with the surgery.
"Will this decrease the disincentive to (kidney) donation? I think the answer is yes," says Dr. Inderbir S. Gill of the Cleveland Clinic. Let's hope so.
To read more, visit
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-07-17-kidney-bellybutton_N.htm
Special thanks to the Gander for bringing this story to our attention!
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