Two-year-old goes home after kidney transplant

Two-year-old Chien Ting-en (簡廷恩) became the youngest kidney transplant recipient in Asia yesterday, after doctors at National Taiwan University Hospital announced that the operation had been successful and that the little girl had been released to go home.

Ting-en began to suffer from urinary disease when she was only one year old. Her kidneys began to fail in December last year. Doctors were unable to determine the cause of the problem in such a young child.

The doctors put Ting-en on a dialysis mchine, which took 12 hours to complete treatment each day. The doctors said that even if Ting-en could survive the treatments, she still might not grow normally.

Seeing his daughter suffer the unbearable pain every day, the single father, Chien Shih-ping (簡世彬), decided to give one of his kidneys to Ting-en.

Doctors performed a series of surgeries Dec. 13, first removing the father's left kidney, then removing Ting-en's two defective kidneys and replacing them with her father's kidney.

Chien's kidney proved to be too big but doctors applied an artificial peritoneum membrane to successfully hold the transplanted kidney in place. The doctors' greatest worry was that the kidney was too big to allow Ting-en to have normal blood circulation and blood pressure.

After about two months of observation and treatment, doctors found that the child's body had not rejected the new organ and that there was no abnormal urinary tract function. Doctors then decided to let her go home.

Doctors said Ting-en needs to return to the hospital for a check-up only once every year if everything goes smoothly.