City doctors set record for organ transplants

City doctors set record for organ transplants
Surgical teams perform 10 major operations within 24 hours
Darah Hansen, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, November 01, 2007
Surgeons and medical staff in Vancouver celebrated a provincial first this month, performing a record number of life-saving organ transplants within a 24-hour period Oct. 23 and 24.

Ten major organ transplants were successfully undertaken by surgical teams of more than 100 people working around the clock at Vancouver General Hospital.

The surgeries included four kidney transplants, two double lung transplants, and three liver transplants.


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Font:****At the same time, another kidney transplant was performed at St. Paul's Hospital.

Normally, VGH, the centre for transplant surgery in the province, carries out nine to 12 such operations over a month.

On Wednesday, a public celebration marked the occasion.

Anne Sutherland Boal, a senior official with Vancouver Coastal Health, said the number of surgeries is a provincial record and "could stand as a Canadian record as well."

Eight surgeries were made possible by the donations of major organs from two anonymous donors, whose deaths provided four kidneys, two livers and four lungs. The three other surgeries -- including two kidney transplants and a liver transplant -- were made possible through living donors.

Doctors said all the recipients were doing "very well."

Twenty-three-year-old Eva Markvoort of New Westminster was among the recipients.

dahansen@png.canwest.com




© The Vancouver Sun 2007