| Kidney donors and recipients meet for the first time following surgery. From left, Jeremy Weiser-Warschoff with donor Paul Boissiere; Germaine Allum with donor Connie Dick; and Julia Tower with recipient Tracy Stahl. |
On July 28, 2003, surgeons at The Johns Hopkins CTC performed what is believed to be the world’s first “triple-swap” kidney transplant operation, providing a new lease on life for a woman from Miami, a woman from Pittsburgh and a child from Washington, D.C.
The three kidney recipients had come to Hopkins separately for evaluation, each with a willing donor who did not have a compatible blood or tissue type. The transplant team discovered that by swapping kidneys among the pairs, all three recipients would have a compatible kidney from someone they had never met. All six patients are recuperating well.
“This was truly a remarkable event,” says Robert A. Montgomery, M.D., Ph.D., lead surgeon on the case and director of the incompatible kidney transplant programs at Hopkins. “We have created a matchmaker system that attempts to pair all of our incompatible donors and recipients.”
