The three patients who underwent a rare six-way kidney transplant were resting comfortably on Friday morning, hospital officials said, as three more were undergoing surgery to finish the 12-person operation.
California Pacific Medical Center spokesman Dean Fryer said “everything went well” and there were no complications to report stemming from Thursday’s surgery. Doctors on Friday will complete the two-day transplant among six donors and six recipients. Most are from the Bay Area, and two are from the Central Valley. The donors and recipients include three parent-and-child pairs, one sibling pair, and one brother- and sister-in-law pair.
The six-way transplant is the “largest single center kidney paired donation chain conducted on the West Coast” and the largest conducted in the 44-year history of the CPMC Transplant Center, the hospital said. CPMC was the first California hospital to perform a five-way kidney swap in 2011. Hospital administrators took full advantage of the good news to share, tweeting out photos and video of the surgery in progress.
Zully Broussard, 55, of Sacramento was the first donor to kick off this unusual chain of events. She came to the hospital to say she wanted to donate a kidney, but didn’t have a donor in mind. Through the work of a softward program called Matchgrid 11 other donors and recipients were found.
Before the surgery, Broussard said she felt like “a higher power” was “behind all this making it happen. I didn't realize it was so huge. I'm just a small part of the chain."
Fryer said Broussard, the only patient whose identity has been revealed, came out of her 90-minute surgery with no problems. Recovery times vary but the donor typically needs two to three days and the recipient will need about three to five days, Fryer said.
A reception for the donors, recipients and their families is being planned for March 25.
NBC Bay Area's Kent Wilhoite contributed to this report.
Transferring the #kidney from Zully tot the recipients Operating Room. #zullygives #6wayTransplant pic.twitter.com/SlxlGWC4Ic
— CaliforniaPacificMed (@CPMCinSF) March 5, 2015