Kochi, Aug 30  : Kochi has acquired some fame in the wake of it recording the first combined instance of a pancreas kidney transplant.

This landmark surgery was successfully carried out at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) here.

This highly complex surgery was done on 35-year-old civil engineer S. Syed Yunus Shahi, who hails from Palakkad.

Syed's family is thankful to the family of a 38-year-old donor, who was declared brain dead.

Shahi had been suffering from Type I Diabetes for the past 16 years and developed diabetes-related complications like retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy and end stage kidney failure over the past two years.

Despite using an insulin pump, he had erratic blood sugar which prevented him from effectively doing his work. Following surgery, his blood sugar is normal and he is on a normal diet.

Type I Diabetes Mellitus otherwise called Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM) or Juvenile Diabetes Mellitus is a relatively rare health disorder primarily affecting young people as a result of destruction of insulin producing Beta cells present in pancreas.

The subsequent lack of insulin leads to increased blood and urine sugar which in turn result in damage multiple organs like kidney, heart, nervous system, blood vessels, eyes and gut.

This combined procedure of transplanting both the Kidney and the Pancreas in a single surgical operation is particularly effective for patients who have Type 1 Diabetes and chronic kidney failure. If the kidney alone is transplanted and the Diabetes is poorly controlled, then even the transplanted kidney will slowly be affected by the high blood sugar levels.

The main advantage of this combined transplantation is improvement in quality of life and freedom from diabetes related complications and dialysis. This also avoids frequent blood sugar testing and occurrence of life threatening low blood sugars as a result of insulin overdose.

Simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplants aren't new in medical literature. The first transplant was done in 1966 in the US and hundreds of transplants have been done since then. However this is a rare surgery in India probably due to scarcity of donor organs.

This technically complex surgery was done by a multi-disciplinary team involving Transplant Surgery, Nephrology, Urology, Endocrinology and Anaesthesia and Critical care.

Solid organ transplant unit of AIMS has been active in the field of both live and deceased donor liver transplantation. So far, more than 350 liver transplants have been performed at AIMS since 2004, including India's first pediatric liver transplant.

The organ donation was facilitated by the Kerala Network for Organ Sharing {KNOS} the Kerala Government's Nodal Agency for Organ Retrieval and Sharing.

The Amrita Institute of Medical Science (AIMS), Kochi, Kerala, set up in 1998 is a super speciality hospital providing primary and specialty care medical services. It is the adjunct to the term "new universalism" coined by the World Health Organization.

Annual patient turnover touches an incredible figure of over 779,055 outpatients and nearly 47,577 inpatients.

AIMS extensive infrastructure offers facilities comprising 25 modern operating theatres, 210 equipped intensive-care beds, a fully computerized and networked Hospital Information System (HIS), a fully digital radiology department, NABL accredited clinical laboratories and 24 / 7 telemedicine service. AIMS features one of the most advanced hospital computer networks in India.(ANI)