Surgeons save lives of 5 children via organ transplants at Schneider
7-year-old receives liver lobe, three children receive kidneys, 13-year-old receives a liver.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHChild who received kidney transplant from mom 370(photo credit: Schneider Children’s Medical Center)
Within 72 hours over the weekend, the staff of Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva successfully transplanted five organs into five small children.The lifesaving organs were a liver lobe, a whole liver and three kidneys. All the recipients were in stable condition on Sunday, Clalit Health Services – the owner of Schneider – reported.The first operation involved a seven-year-old girl who suffered from liver insufficiency and whose father donated a lobe to her.Forty-eight hours later, a kidney was transplanted into a five-year-old boy, donated by his mother.As this surgery was going on, the Israel Transplant Center learned that a liver and two child-sized kidneys had been donated. At the end of the mother-to-son transplant, the surgical team started to transplant the liver into a 13-year-old boy and the kidneys into a three-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy.No information about the deceased donors was provided.Schneider is one of the few pediatric hospitals in the world that can handle numerous organ transplants simultaneously.All five transplants were performed by Prof. Eitan Mor, head of the hospital’s transplant center, and colleagues.Schneider has performed 450 organ transplants – which constitutes the majority of organ transplants performed on children in the country.
