BALTIMORE -- A Maryland transplant surgeon said he and doctors at four hospitals in four states 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. Ten doctors performed 16 surgeries on the eight donors and eight recipients at Hopkins and the hospitals in Michigan, Oklahoma and Missouri, Montgomery said.
Bolstering a national kidney-swap program could help ease the shortage of transplant organs, Montgomery said. 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.
