Baylor St. Luke’s First Internal Kidney Transplant Swap

Congratulations to Our Kidney Transplant Team on the Success of Baylor St. Luke’s First Internal Kidney Transplant Swap (iSwap)

On Wednesday, July 18, the kidney transplant team successfully performed the first internal kidney transplant swap (iSwap) in the history of Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center. The transplant team completed four operations simultaneously—two living kidney donors and two kidney transplant recipients.

The Living Donor iSwap program is an innovative transplant option for candidates who have a living donor who is medically able, but cannot donate a kidney to their intended candidate because they are incompatible. Instead, the donors and recipients were paired by the Baylor College of Medicine HLA lab.

Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Thao Galvan, Dr. Christine O’Mahony, John Eaton, Dr. Matt Cusick, and members of Baylor St. Luke’s Living Donor team including, Jane DeLeon, Hope Finely, and Michelle Mclaren for spearheading the development of the iSwap program. Other instrumental team members include our Transplant Surgeons, BCM HLA lab, Urology, CV OR, Main OR, CV Pre-op, Main Pre-op, CV Recovery, Main Recovery, 12 tower, 16 tower, 25 tower, and CV Anesthesia led by Dr. James Anton.

Congratulations to the team on this exciting achievement for Baylor St. Luke’s!