A team at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center set an institutional record by transplanting 10 kidneys in two days using a 20-person chain.
After planning since October, clinicians recently performed 20 surgeries over two days to transplant the healthy kidneys from 10 living donors into 10 recipients. The medical center's transplant center is one of the busiest kidney transplant sites in the U.S., according to OSU. The center has performed more than 8,500 kidney transplants since 1967.
This 20-person transplant chain is "believed to be one of the largest single institution chains in the nation," the Columbus-based organization said in a Dec. 19 news release.
The transplant chain not only helped 10 patients avoid years on a waitlist and the burden of long-term dialysis treatment, it also shortened the kidney transplant waitlist for 90,506 others.