By RINTARO SAKURAI/ Staff Writer
October 1, 2024 at 16:00 JST
Doctors recount how a woman qualified as a living donor for her partner who needed a kidney transplant at a news conference in Kyoto’s Sakyo Ward on Sept. 30. (Rintaro Sakurai)
KYOTO—Kyoto University Hospital announced here on Sept. 30 that, for the first time in Japan, it performed a kidney transplant where the donor was the same-sex partner of the patient.
The recipient was a Kyoto resident suffering chronic renal failure and receiving dialysis.
In accordance with the Japan Society for Transplantation's ethical guideline, only blood relatives of up to six degrees separation from the patient are allowed to be a living donor for such surgeries.
For in-laws, the limit is three degrees of separation.
Kyoto University Hospital said that the woman's partner had expressed her willingness to become a donor.
The pair received approval from ethics committees of both Kyoto University and the Japan Society for Transplantation ahead of the operation that took place in May.
"Even though there were no previous examples of surgeries related to relationships such as ours, we were able to undergo the surgery successfully thanks to the dedicated efforts of doctors and the people who were involved," said a statement to the media from the two via the hospital.
It continued: "We have nothing but gratitude as we are recovering well after the surgery. It would make us happy if this example of a living-donor transplant gives hope to patients in similar circumstances who had given up on surgery and were unaware that this is not the case."
After her surgery, the patient became able to live without receiving dialysis and was discharged three weeks later.
“There may be patients who are unaware that they can receive the benefits of a transplant, even from a donor who is not legally family,” said Takashi Kobayashi, a Kyoto University Hospital professor and one of the doctors who performed the surgery, at a news conference.
“We want them to know that they can receive the benefits after completing the procedures,” he said.
The hospital said the couple has resumed their daily lives together.
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