Scar Free Kidney Transplant

In 1960 Better techniques for matching donor and recipient blood and tissue types, as well as improvements in preserving cadaveric - from recently deceased donors -are developed.

In 1962 The first cadaveric kidney transplant is performed at Brigham Hospital in Boston.

In 1967 The first successful human liver transplant is performed by surgeons from the University of Colorado. The recipient lived for a year before dying from a recurrence of liver cancer.

In 1968 First U.S. heart transplant, Stanford University. First pancreas transplant, University of Minnesota. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act is passed by Congress, making it legal to donate a deceased individual's organs and tissue for transplantation.

In 1980's & 1990's New techniques, new medications and new patient information help make kidney transplants a safer, more effective and more routine procedure.

In 1990 First successful small intestine transplant.

In 1992 Surgeons complete an 11-hour transplant operation of a baboon liver into a human. The liver eventually grows three times its original size and is equal in size to an adult human liver, but the patient dies after 71 days as doctors try to wean him from ventilator.

2008 A new procedure allows doctors to extract a donor's kidney through the navel.

Thus preventing scarring; technique may also be employed in other operations
Brad Kaster donated a kidney to his father this week, and he barely has a scar to show for it. The kidney was removed through a single incision in his bellybutton, a surgical procedure that doctors say will reduce recovery time and leave almost no scarring. "The actual incision point on me is so tiny, I'm not getting any pain from it," said Kaster, 29. "I can't even see it." Kaster was the tenth donor to undergo the procedure at US-based Cleveland Clinic. "This new procedure could make kidney donations more palatable by sharply reducing recovery time," said Dr Inderbir S Gill, who performed the surgery with colleagues at the research clinic.

HOW IT WORKS
The operation involves making a three-quarter inch incision in the interior of the bellybutton, and inserting a tube-like port with several round entry points, which allows for the further insertion of a camera and other tools into the belly.
The belly is inflated with carbon dioxide to provide manoeuvring room. The kidney is then freed from connecting tissue, wrapped in a plastic bag and removed through the navel when the blood supply is cut, shrinking the organ's fist-like size. The incision is then expanded to about an inch and a half to extract the kidney after the port is removed.
"The procedure would not be appropriate for those who have had multiple major abdominal surgeries or who are obese," Gill said. "Both the conditions would limit the ability to look around the abdomen and manoeuvre instruments."

NO SCARS, AND FASTER RECOVERY
A person can return-to-work time for single-point donors is about 17 days, versus 51 for traditional multi-incision laparoscopic procedure. The first 10 recipients and donors whose transplants used the single-incision navel procedure have done well, according to the researchers. They will report on the first four patients in the August issue of the Journal of Urology.
Preliminary data from the first nine donors who had the bellybutton procedure showed they recovered in just under a month, while donors who underwent the standard laparoscopic procedure with four to six 'key-hole' incisions took longer than three months to recover.
The clinic says the return-to-work time for single-point donors is about 17 days, versus 51 for traditional multi-incision laparoscopic procedure.
"For me, that's huge as I can get back to work," said Kaster, an optometrist.
Also, patients of the new procedure were on pain pills for less than four days on average, compared with 26 days for laparoscopic patients.
However, the new procedure "is not used to transplant the kidney into the receiving patient", said Gill, who has begun training other surgeons on the procedure.

NOT JUST KIDNEY…
Doctors Paul Curcillo and Stephanie King of Drexel University College of Medicine developed the single-incision technique – and Curcillo was the first to use the method to remove a woman's gallbladder through her bellybutton in May 2007.
They have since used it for a number of different kinds of surgery.
Curcillo said the bellybutton procedure "will definitely make things better" for the donor.
"A donor is one of the most altruistic people you'll ever meet. He's giving his kidney up. So they deserve anything you can do to make it better for that patient," he said.