Four months on, Karnataka yet to see multi-pair kidney swap transplant

Four months after Karnataka introduced guidelines allowing multi-pair kidney paired exchange transplants, the state has yet to perform a single such transplant. Only one request has been submitted to the State Authorisation Committee, which approved the arrangement but a misunderstanding between donor-recipient families prevented the transplant from happening.

The guidelines, framed in April, were meant to help patients with incompatible donors and were operationalised under the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act (THOTA) of 1994. The committee requires prior approval, including clinical, immunological, psychological, and legal evaluations, and the transplant procedures should be conducted simultaneously to prevent the arrangement from breaking down.

The committee has also requested inter-hospital coordination plans for cases involving multiple hospitals. Despite the guidelines being in place, the committee has not seen any multi-pair swap transplants implemented in the state so far.