A 51-YEAR-OLD AIDS patient has recently undergone a successful kidney transplant at the Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen. The surgical procedure was the first kidney transplant for an AIDS patient in Guangdong Province, Shenzhen Evening News reported.
The male patient, under the alias Tian, has been confirmed with HIV infection for 10 years, during which he had been treated in a hospital in the city of Kunming, Yunnan Province.
The Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen. SD-Agencies
In 2018, Tian had high levels of creatinine, a waste product produced by muscles filtered through the kidneys. He first sought treatment via traditional Chinese medicine and in July 2019, he began hemodialysis.
Tian wanted a kidney transplant. He came to the kidney transplantation department of the Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen this year.
According to Yuan Xiaopeng, director of the hospital’s kidney transplantation department, it is unclear which type of kidney disease Tian had due to the absence of a pathological puncture, but it was likely to be a special type of kidney disease caused by HIV infection.
In August this year, Tian found his kidney transplant match.
Yuan said that Tian suffered from mild liver cirrhosis and poor coagulation function. Tian’s surgery was just as difficult as ordinary patients, though medical staff had to adopt protective measures slightly different from the usual.
According to Yuan, in the past, organ transplants had always been a no-go for AIDS patients as the medical community generally believed that anti-rejection drugs taken after a kidney transplant would make these patients’ condition uncontrollable.
“But with the progress of HIV treatment, gradually, HIV infection can still be well controlled,” said Yuan.
Tian is now recovering well and is receiving further treatment at the hospital