Piedmont Hospital performs three-way transplant

ATLANTA — An organ matching program at Piedmont Hospital saved the lives of three patients looking for transplants.

All six operations were completed in one morning.

Patient Katie Harris' kidneys started failing six years ago.

"I felt like I was just sick all the time," said Harris. "I would have to take naps after work. It was really hard, especially because all my friends were out doing things that 31-year-olds do, that I couldn't do."

Harris' mother in law, Mary, was a transplant match. But one day before surgery, doctors discovered Harris had developed antibodies to the tissue. She said it was a devastating blow.

"It felt like someone had died," she said.

Meanwhile, two other families working with Piedmont transplant coordinators were going through similar ordeals.

Nikki Smith kidney's failed after a massive infection from a dog bite, but her mother wasn't a good match. Vicki Deeson had an inherited kidney defect. She hoped for a transplant with her brother-in-law but that didn't work out. So, Piedmont doctors mixed and matched other donors, with a three-way paring.

Surgeon Dr. Miguel Tan told Channel 2's Diana Davis that paired transplants can save the lives of thousands of kidney patients who would otherwise die on the transplant waiting list.
         
"At the end of the day, everyone is really happy because then, all of a sudden you have three people who got transplanted who otherwise wouldn't. On average, it doubles the number of kidney transplant that you can do," said Tan.

Piedmont has performed several double paired transplants, but this was the first triple pairing. About 150 hospitals across the country now have similar paired transplant programs.

"If everyone in the country was doing it, we would probably increase the number of kidneys we do by about 10 or 15 percent," Tan said.