OMG.
USC, UCLA team up for the world’s first-in-human bladder transplant
Keck Medicine of USC. https://news.keckmedicine.org/usc-ucla-team-up-for-the-worlds-first-in-human-bladder-transplant/
Dr Inderbri Gill from USC and Nima Nassiri from UCLA—jointly completed a bladder transplantation surgery to a patient who has been on dialysis for seven years.
He lost the majority of his bladder during surgery to resect cancer over five years ago, leaving the remainder of his bladder too small and compromised to function appropriately. Both of his kidneys were subsequently removed due to renal cancer.
To address these deficits, Drs. Gill and Nassiri performed a combined kidney and bladder transplant, allowing the patient to immediately stop dialysis and produce urine for the first time in seven years. First the kidney, then the bladder, were transplanted. The new kidney was then connected to the new bladder. The entire procedure took approximately eight hours.
More from NYTimes:
Surgeons Perform First Human Bladder Transplant
Turns out that bladder is a difficult problem:
Until now, most patients who undergo a bladder removal have a portion of their intestine repurposed to help them pass urine. Some receive an ileal conduit, which empties urine into a bag outside the abdomen, while others are given a so-called neobladder, or a pouch tucked inside the body that attaches to the urethra and allows patients to urinate more traditionally.
But bowel tissue, riddled with bacteria, is “inherently contaminated,” Dr. Gill said, and introducing it to the “inherently sterile” urinary tract leads to complications in up to 80 percent of patients, ranging from electrolyte imbalances to a slow reduction in kidney function. The loss of the intestinal segment can also cause new digestive issues.
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And the doctor from UCLA is really young, btw:
In late 2020, Dr. Nassiri was in his fourth year of residency at the University of Southern California when he and Dr. Gill sat down in the hospital cafeteria to begin brainstorming approaches. After Dr. Nassiri began a fellowship on kidney transplantation at U.C.L.A., the two surgeons continued working together across institutions to test both robotic and manual techniques, practicing first on pigs, then human cadavers, and finally, human research donors who no longer had brain activity but maintained a heartbeat.
Congratulations! On the success of the surgery, but also for a patient who can now live happily, and hopefully ever after :)