In Asia’s first, dead woman revived for organ donation

In a first for Asia, doctors at HCMCT Manipal Hospital, Dwarka, successfully restarted blood circulation of Geeta Chawla, 55, after her death to preserve her organs for donation.

Paralysed and bed-ridden due to the motor neurone disease, she was admitted to the hospital on November 5. However, she breathed her last at 8.43 pm on November 6, after her heart stopped and an ECG confirmed the absence of cardiac activity for five minutes.

Following this, doctors began a procedure known as Normothermic Regional Perfusion (NRP), where circulation is temporarily restarted through an ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenator (ECMO).

The procedure restored blood flow to her abdominal organs, allowing the medical team to maintain them for nearly four hours after death. During this time, the transplant teams retrieved her liver and kidneys for allocation by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO).

Her liver was transplanted into a 48-year-old man at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), while her kidneys were transplanted into a 63-year-old and a 58-year-old men at Max Hospital, Saket. Her corneas and skin were also donated for further medical use.

Dr Shrikanth Srinivasan, Chairman, Manipal Institute of Critical Care Medicine, said organ donation in India generally occured after brain death, when the heart continues to beat. “In donation after circulatory death, the heart stops and organs must be retrieved within minutes. By starting the NRP, we were able to keep the liver and kidneys viable long enough for retrieval and transplantation,” he said.

Dr (Col) Avnish Seth, Chairman of the Manipal Institute of Gastroenterology & Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Sciences and Country Head of Manipal Organ Sharing & Transplant (MOST), said, “This was the first NRP in Asia, where we restricted circulation to the abdomen to retrieve liver and kidneys.”

A significant gap exists in India between the number of patients needing organ transplant and organs actually available. Around 1.8 lakh people in India suffer kidney failure every year, but only 13,426 transplants were performed in 2023.

Around 25,000 to 30,000 liver transplants are required annually, while only 4,491 were completed last year. Heart transplants numbered 221 and corneal transplants stood at 25,000 against a demand of 1 lakh.