DAMMAM — Traveling abroad for organ transplantation is no longer an urgent need after the Ministry of Health provided specialized transplant centers around the Kingdom that offer expertise and scientific, practical and consulting skills. One of these specialized centers is King Fahad Specialist Hospital's Multi Organ Transplant Center (MOT) which has successfully fulfilled numerous achievements in this area and is characterized by its superior ability to receieve and treat most cases of rare transplants; particularly that of pancreas and kidney at once, and has so far conducted 10 such transplants successfully. Dr. Mohammed S. Qahtani, consultant at the MOT, stated that the pancreas contains the cells responsible for storage and release of the co-principal hormone in the balance of blood sugar and body's cells, known as insulin. When pancreas fails it causes Type 1 diabetes. Pancreas transplants are usually conducted for patients with high blood sugar. Dr. Qahtani explained that procedure in this area is limited only to transplant of pancreas with Type 1 diabetes who suffer from frequent and unpredictable low and severe hypoglycemia. The other kind is the kidney transplant, where the organ is taken from a living donor followed by transplanting pancreas taken from brain deceased donor, while conducting pancreas and kidney procedures simultaneously for patients suffering from Type 1 diabetes and kidney failure. Dr. Qahtani said the most important conditions are that a patient should pass all necessary tests and procedures to make sure he/she is free of any current infections or tumors. He also pointed out that surgical procedure is usually conducted as soon as the required valid organ is available; whereupon the patient and his family is notified by phone for admission into hospital to start conducting the necessary tests and practically matching tissues within a few hours, then the transplant process is carried out. Dr. Qahtani said the KFSH-D's Multi Organ Transplant Center has so far conducted about 10 surgeries for transplant of kidney and pancreas simultaneously which were all successfully completed.
