Doctors at Medeor 24x7 Hospital, Dubai, a premium 100-bed multispecialty hospital of VPS Healthcare, recently performed UAE’s first laparoscopic partial nephrectomy to save a man’s life.

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, in the United States 1 in 400 to 1 in 1000 people suffer from polycystic kidney disease (PKD). The disease causes abnormal sacs or cysts to grow on the surface of the kidney and usually results in kidney failure by the age of 40 to 60 and will require a kidney transplant or dialysis. The sufferers of the condition need to be monitored regularly to ensure optimum kidney function.

“Our patient, a 37 year old Indian male, visited his nephrologist in Ras Al Khaimah complaining of a fever. Since he suffers from polycystic kidney disease and has borderline reduction of renal function, his doctor recommended he do an MRI. The MRI revealed a 4 centimetre renal tumour,” said Dr. Sanjay Bhat, Specialist Urologist at Medeor 24x7 Hospital.

“In such cases, the doctor would usually just remove the whole kidney. However, this case was complicated by the fact that the patient suffered from polycystic kidney disease and hence had a reduced renal function already and removing the whole kidney might end up the patient on lifelong dialysis.”

The patient was then referred to Medeor 24x7 Hospital, Dubai where a team of doctors comprising of Dr Sanjay Bhat, Dr Deepak Janardhanan, specialist urologist and Dr. Abdul Aneez, specialist anesthesiologist performed a laparoscopic partial nephrectomy, meaning only the tumour was removed and the defect in the kidney was repaired. The keyhole surgery ensured the preservation of the kidney function.

“This operation is very complicated to do in individuals with normal kidneys and is much more complicated to perform on those with polycystic kidney disease,” said Dr Sanjay. “Following the operation, the patient is recovering well.”

Such a surgery is the first of its kind in the UAE, with Doctors usually employing a hand assisted laparoscopic surgery to remove tumours in patients suffering from polycystic kidney disease.

“By performing a laparoscopic partial nephrectomy, we were able to ensure that the patient recovers fasters and can return to normal life quickly. Also the post-surgical pain is much less,” said Dr. Sanjay. “One of the biggest advantages of performing this type of surgery was that we prevented the patient from going into renal failure which might require lifelong dialysis or a renal transplantation.”  - TradeArabia News Service