01 Jul 2010
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Madam Pong Chan Fong’s kidneys are unique. Unlike the average person, she has four. And out of these, two used to belong to someone else.
On Feb 12 this year, Mdm Pong received a pair of kidneys from a 71-year-old donor, and the 38-year-old considers them the two best gifts she has ever received.
Mdm Pong’s situation is the result of Ministry of Health’s decision to remove the upper age limit of 60 years for deceased organ donation under the Human Organ Transplant Act on Nov 1, 2009. The change was made to reduce the long waiting list for kidneys and is projected to increase the number of organ donors from 10 to 12 each year.
Because older kidneys usually do not have enough functioning tissue, surgeons may need to transplant both kidneys to enable the body to work normally. This surgery has been practised in the US since 1994, with more than 1,500 cases performed globally.
In Singapore, the surgery is relatively new. According to Dr Terence Kee, Consul-tant and Director of Renal Transplantation, Department of Renal Medicine, Singapore General Hospital (SGH), this is one of the main reasons many patients here are hesitant about undergoing the procedure. Mdm Pong, however, had no such reservations. After receiving Dr Kee’s call on Feb 11, she made an appointment for a check-up that very day.
At 6am the next morning, she was wheeled into the operating theatre, and was discharged a week later.
Leap of faith
“To be honest, I had given up hope of waiting for a kidney. There are people who wait for years, and never get a suitable one,” said Mdm Pong.
Her concerns were not without reason. According to 2009 statistics from National Organ Transplant Unit, the average waiting time for a kidney in Singapore is nine years and five months. Between 2007 and 2009, 25 patients died while waiting for a kidney.
“When the government lifted the age limit for deceased organ donation, I started to be hopeful again,” said Mdm Pong, who first discovered she was suffering from kidney failure in 1999 and started Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis three years later, a procedure in which the patient manually drains and refills dialysis solution into his or her abdomen at home.
Exciting advances in treatment
With her successful operation, Mdm Pong became the second patient in Singapore to undergo a dual kidney transplant.
Mdm Pong’s kidneys have “excellent function... (which) is better than many othersingle kidney transplants from deceased donors,” said Dr Kee. The process of transplanting two kidneys is not much different from the procedure involving single kidneys.
“The challenges of dual kidney transplant are: getting the right donor and recipient, choosing the right side to put the kidneys and using the right drugs to ensure the kidneys function optimally,” said Dr Tan Yeh Hong, Senior Consultant, Department of Urology, SGH.
Post-operative care for such procedures is similar to that of single kidney transplants. All Mdm Pong needs to do is take anti-rejection drugs twice daily, and monitor her progress carefully.
In exchange, Mdm Pong now relishes a newfound freedom and zest for life. “In the past, I couldn’t exercise. But now, I brisk-walk for one hour a day. I can also travel now that I don’t need to be on dialysis. In fact, I am thinking of going on a trip to Japan in a year or two.”
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