Innovative Surgery Performed in L.A.

A Los Angeles mother recently became the first person on the West Coast to donate a kidney using a pioneering procedure that makes it less challenging for many people to give the gift of life to loved ones by decreasing recovery time and post-surgical pain. Carmen Becerra donated a kidney to her 17-year-old son Jose via a single-port donor nephrectomy procedure - essentially removing her kidney through her belly-button.

The surgery, originally developed and performed by Inderbir S. Gill, chair of the Catherine and Joseph Aresty Department of Urology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, took place at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, a USC-affiliated hospital. It is believed to be the 20th such procedure done in the United States. Nearly all of these procedures have been performed by Gill's team.

"This procedure creates virtually no scars and leads to faster recovery time for the donor," Gill said. "Kidney donors in the past faced many more risks. With this procedure, donors can be out of the hospital in two or three days and back to normal activities within two weeks. We hope that knowing this procedure is available will encourage more people to consider becoming donors."

Three additional patients have undergone successful belly-button donor nephrectomy by Gill and his USC team since the first procedure.

"I feel fabulous," said Becerra after the surgery. "Two days after surgery I was walking, and by the weekend it felt like nothing had happened. I had a few cramps, but that was it. [Dr. Gill] did a wonderful thing."

The procedure differs from traditional laparoscopic surgery, in which four to six small incisions are made in the abdomen to accommodate surgical instruments and the laparoscope.

In single-port donor nephrectomy, a 3-4 centimeter incision is made in the navel. The single port is inserted into the incision with many different channels that hold the surgical equipment and laparoscope. Three to six months after the procedure, the surgical scar is nearly invisible in the donor.

Becerra’s hospital stay lasted two days. Her son, the kidney recipient, was discharged after about a week and a half.

After removal from Becerra, the kidney was immediately transplanted into her son by Brian Hardy, chief of the Division of Pediatric Urology at Childrens Hospital.

"All transplantation procedures are delicate. You're dealing with the lives of not just one but two people," Hardy said. "The ability to remove the kidney in a virtually scar-free manner decreases the pain and suffering for the donor, which is a very important consideration."

For more information on single-port donor nephrectomy and the USC Institute of Urology, visit http://www.uscurology.com/

Contact: Leslie Ridgeway
newsinfo@usc.edu