DALLAS-Now it's laparoscopic kidneys from live donors.
A Johns Hopkins team has worked through four ports in a donor abdomen to maneuver a kidney so it could be eased through a three-inch incision below the navel.
In all, the team has harvested 10 kidneys laparoscopically, nine of which are functioning, Dr. Lloyd Ratner told the American Society of Transplant Surgeons meeting here. At three months postop mean creatinine clearance was 67.3 ml/min, vs. 64.8 ml/min for 20 control kidneys from open nephrectomies.
Procedures took a mean of 236 minutes, vs. 183 minutes for controls. But laparoscopy led to 2.6-day hospital stays for donors, vs. 5.7 for controls, and full activity in 2.4 weeks, vs. 4.2 for controls. Dr. Ratner says four of the donors wouldn't have undergone an open nephrectomy.
