Hyderabad: This man has three kidney transplants in over 20 years

New Delhi: For people who meet the requirements, getting a transplant the best option in treating a kidney failure. Studies have shown that patients who receive a kidney transplant usually live longer than those who stay on dialysis.

However, scarcity of organs for transplantation makes many people to go for alternatives - hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.

It is said that in India, around 1.6 lakh patients are waiting for organs with a mere 12,000 donors available. The Ministry of Health estimated that while the annual requirement for kidneys could range between 1-2 lakh, a mere 5,000 transplants occur in reality.

Beating all odds, a 52-year-old man from Hyderabad underwent three kidney transplantations, which is a rare case in the country.

As per reports, Mr Surinder Kumar Sahoo had his first transplant in 1995 when he was just 28 years old and the secon done in 2011, after a gap of 12 years. However, he had to undergo a third transplant after he developed complications in 2013 at Gleneagales Global Hospital.

The rare surgery lasted for six hours against four hours of any regular transplant.

Dr GC Malakondaiah said the success rate of this kind of surgeries is very low, chances of kidney transplants are also high.

“However after four years, he is leading a normal life with the aide of immunosuppressive drugs,” said Dr Malakondaiah.

Sahoo, who spent about Rs 15 lakh for his treatment, is believed to be the first person to have undergone such a rare case in south India.

According to Dr Sridhar, chief nephrologist and who supervised the surgery, there have been only around five cases of a person undergoing three transplants documented in India’s medical literature.

With the country witnessing a steep rise in the number of kidney disease cases, health experts said that at present 17 in every hundred citizens suffer from some form of kidney disease.