Kellana blazes a trail in organ transplants

Assistant Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources for Petroleum Affairs Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman, who is also general supervisor of the Prince Fahd bin Salman Charity Association for Renal Failure (Kellana), said Kellana and the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH &RC) have collaborated in transplant operations, especially kidney transplants. Kellana has also collaborated with the National Society of Kidney Diseases.
“Kellana was established through the efforts of Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, to help reduce the sufferings of renal failure patients and their families,” Prince Abdulaziz said while addressing an open forum on the role of the community in organ donation organized by the KFSC& RC in Riyadh on Thursday.
Prince Salman also strove to establish the first organ transplant center in the Middle East starting with kidney transplants and later expanding its activities to transplant other organs as well, Prince Abdulaziz said.
“Some kidney dialysis centers were also established later. One of them is the Prince Salman Center for the Care of Renal Failure in Riyadh that now benefits 500 patients,” the prince said.
Kellana has treated close to 800 patients whose expenses were paid with zakat funds. The association’s activities have been a success with the cooperation of its medical committee comprising 25 Saudi members who are internationally recognized experts. They work without expecting any material return. The association also supports a program called the Muhammad and Abdullah Ibrahim Al-Subaiee Program that promotes organ donations. “Over the past 30 years 7,660 operations have been performed through the transplant programs. They included 1,240 liver transplant operations, 94 lung operations, 228 heart transplants, 663 cornea transplants and 19 pancreas transplants,” he said. “Having set organ transplantation as the primary concern of the KFSH, its two hospitals in Riyadh and Jeddah have undertaken 760 transplants including 335 marrow and stem cell transplants for children and the elderly and 261 kidney transplants in 2012,” General Supervisor of the KFSH & RC Qasim Al-Qasbi said.
The specialist hospital and research center has a pioneering role in organ transplants with three decades of experience, which began with the first kidney transplant in 1981. It was followed by marrow, stem cell, heart, lung, liver and bone transplants. Last year the two specialist hospitals also undertook 101 liver transplants, 19 heart transplants, 14 lungs and 30 bone marrow transplants with a success rate comparable to the success in any other international center, Al-Qasbi said. The number of transplants in 2012 registered an 84 percent jump compared to 2005. “The KFSH&RC also largely reduced the expenses and suffering of patients who would have no other choice but to travel abroad for treatment at a huge cost,” he said.
He added that KFSH&RC’s 730 transplants in 2012 alone would have needed SR 1.4 billion if they were done in the US. But the actual expense for all those operations in Saudi hospitals was SR 482 million. The patients could save SR 918 million by getting treatment in the Kingdom, he said. Consultant for liver transplant at the hospital, Dr. Muhammad Al-Subayyil, said liver transplants are mostly successful and patients can lead a normal life after the transplant.
A major problem faced by the liver transplant department was the shortage of donated organs. Donation could be either from a living person or a dead body and the risks in a donation operation are few.
Director of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplant, Dr. Faisal Shaheen, said the Kingdom has made large strides in organ transplants compared to the few surgeries performed in the eighties.