Story Created:
Jul 7, 2009 at 1:44 PM CDT
Story Updated:
Jul 7, 2009 at 1:44 PM CDT
BALTIMORE (AP) - A Maryland transplant surgeon says he and doctors at four hospitals in four states have transplanted eight kidneys over three weeks in what he considers the largest series of multi-kidney donations ever.
Dr. Robert Montgomery of Johns Hopkins Hospital said at a news conference Tuesday that the last in a series of surgeries was completed Monday night and the patient is doing fine. Montgomery says 10 doctors performed 16 surgeries on the eight donors and eight recipients at Hopkins and the hospitals in Michigan, Oklahoma and Missouri.
Montgomery says bolstering a national kidney-swap program could help ease the shortage of transplant organs. He estimates that the donor pool in the United States could facilitate 1,500 transplants each year, if all transplant centers across the nation participated.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
; "Click for StormVision Doppler Radar")
