Path-breaking kidney transplant helps save Army jawan’s career

Colonel A Jairam,senior advisor of nephrology at the Army Hospital (Research & Referral) in Dhaula Kuan,said in such cases,soldiers are kept under dialysis for a year and then asked to “voluntarily” retire. Raj too had started preparing himself for the inevitable. But his case,according to doctors,has now become the first incompatible kidney transplant in the Armed Forces,with doctors managing to successfully transplant the kidney of his wife (B positive blood group) on him last month. While the process has been successfully done through a series of methods in civil hospitals in the country,this was the first such procedure in an Army hospital,and may help soldiers who would have been forced to quit if no matching donors was available.

Col Jairam said,“We had been keeping all such patients on dialysis for a year,and then there was no option for them but to seek voluntary retirement. Raj’s case is path-breaking,since he is stable and likely to resume duty.” The R&R hospital is already planning another two incompatible kidney transplants,under Commandant of the hospital,Lt Gen A S Narula,who is the senior-most serving nephrologist in the Armed Forces.

Now,a month after the procedure,Raj and his 28-year-old wife Prem Kanwar are glad that they were brave enough to take this step. After 26 dialysis sessions and three months at the hospital,Raj said he is glad he does not have to “depend on a machine” anymore,and can soon resume work. The couple are both healthy,with Prem saying she was back to “normal life” in less than a week after the surgery,though the decision was “initially scary”.

“Being the first patient for any new procedure is always scary. But I feared my husband losing his job more than anything else,especially since he was posted in Kashmir,a posting he was so proud of. I felt so helpless knowing I could not do anything to help… so when doctors gave me this opportunity,I jumped at it,” Prem said.

Doctors led by Brigadier A K Hooda,HoD of nephrology and Brigadier S C Karan,HoD urology,first removed Raj’s antibodies by putting his blood through a process called plasmapheresis.

Doctors then put him on drugs to prevent the formation of new antibodies,to suppress his immune system. “This was essential to prevent any rejection of the donated kidney which was from a different blood group. We conducted 11 such sessions,and then transplanted the kidney. He is stable a month after the procedure,so the body has accepted this kidney. Now,we expect him to be fit enough to resume services after a month or so,” Col Jairam said. According to doctors,this process of plasmapheresis is encouraging because of its cost-effectiveness in comparison to other techniques of immunosuppression.