Belarusian surgeons hold kidney transplantation master class for Ukrainian doctors

Belarusian transplant specialists have held a master class on a low invasive kidney transplant surgery for Ukrainian doctors, BelTA learnt from the National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Center of Belarus.

A joint transplant surgery was conducted on a 53-year old woman in Dnepropetrovsk Regional Teaching Hospital on 8 February. The organ was donated by her 56-year old husband.

It took six hours and three surgeons to conduct the surgery. The operation was led by chief of the Dnepropetrovsk Transplantation Center Alexander Kutovoi. The organ was removed by chief of the transplantation department of the National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Center of Belarus Yuri Slobodin. Another eight doctors watched the surgery in the operating room. Taking part in the master class were transplant specialists from Kyiv, Zaporozhe, Odessa and Donetsk.

This kind of surgery was held in Dnepropetrovsk Oblast for the first time. The use of low invasive laparoscopic method allows reducing the rehabilitation period of both a donor and a recipient two times compared to conventional methods.

Belarus ranks first in the CIS in terms of organ transplant surgeries. In 2012 some 274 transplant surgeries were performed in Belarus. The number of transplant surgeries per one million people in Belarus stands at 29. To compare, the figure in Russia is 9.1 and 2.2 in Ukraine.