- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says 'very violent' Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Guardians maul Tigers, miracle Mets rally in MLB series openers
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Madrid beat Villarreal but Carvajal suffers knee injury
- Madrid beat Villarreal to move level with Liga leaders Barcelona
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- French rugby player on rape charge whistled but 'serene' on return
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Toddler among 3 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Kovacic stars as Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Thousands march for Palestinians ahead of Oct 7 anniversary
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
- Careless Leverkusen held to Bundesliga draw
- O'Brien's 'superstar' Kyprios posts landmark win on Arc weekend
- Toddler crushed to death in migrant Channel crossing
- Liverpool suffer Alisson injury blow
- Habosi helps Racing beat Vannes before Auradou's playing return
- Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
- Israel readying response to Iran missile attack
- Schutt, Mooney help Australia beat Sri Lanka in Women's T20 World Cup
- Liverpool extend Premier League lead with win at Palace
- Djokovic 'shakes rust off' to make third round of Shanghai Masters
- 'Imperfect' PSG fighting on all fronts - Luis Enrique
- Struggling Pakistan look to thwart adaptable England
- Child 'trampled to death' in asylum seekers' Channel crossing: minister
- Gauff fights back to set up Beijing final against Muchova
Could awake kidney transplants become the norm?
"I saw everything," says 74-year-old Harry Stackhouse from Illinois, who was awake during his recent kidney transplant. He felt no pain as he chatted with doctors, examined the donor organ, and watched the surgical team staple him back up.
Stackhouse was discharged just 36 hours after the procedure at Northwestern Medicine, which aims to make transplants without risky general anesthesia commonplace.
Performed in a little over an hour on July 15, this was the second such surgery led by Satish Nadig, director of the Chicago-based hospital system's Comprehensive Transplant Center. He has since carried out a third.
"We're at an inflection point in transplantation today in being able to use the technologies that we have around us to really push us into this next era," Nadig told AFP.
It may sound off-putting or even scary, but the medical benefits of using a spinal anesthetic for kidney transplants -- similar to what's already done during cesarean sections -- are well established.
General anesthesia requires intubation, which can damage the vocal cords, delay bowel function, and cause "brain fog" that persists, particularly in older patients.
But while the medical literature mentions a smattering of awake kidney transplants going back decades across several countries, it's never been fully embraced.
This year marks only the 70th anniversary of the first successful live donor human kidney transplant, Nadig points out, and there's been reluctance to challenge the status quo.
"However, now the outcomes for kidney transplantation are fantastic and it's time that we question the paradigms that we have historically stuck to."
- Life restoring -
Stackhouse, a father-of-six who worked as a painter and decorator, says he first fell ill in December 2019 with flu-like symptoms, which worsened to the point he could barely walk.
A few months later he ended up in the emergency room, where he learned he not only had Covid-19 during the most dangerous early phase of the pandemic, but one of his kidneys had failed and the other was functioning at only two percent.
He resigned himself to thrice-weekly dialysis sessions, but as the ports began failing and his veins started closing up, his daughter Trewaunda urged him to consider a transplant, offering to get herself tested as a donor.
Initially reluctant to "intrude" on his children's lives, Stackhouse finally agreed.
After meeting with Nadig and learning about the AWAKE Kidney Program, which uses accelerated surgery without general anesthesia in kidney transplantation, he decided to go ahead with the procedure.
"Believe it or not, I didn't feel a thing -- it was amazing," Stackhouse told AFP.
He conversed with the medical team during the operation, and when the doctor offered to show him the donor kidney, he didn't hesitate. "Man, I didn't think a kidney is that big!" he exclaimed.
Given his age, Stackhouse was discharged 36 hours later -- slightly longer than the first awake patient Nadig operated on in May, who left after 24 hours, but still much shorter than the US average of five to seven days for sedated patients.
- Who will be eligible? -
Nadig credited the success to advances like targeted anesthetic blocks in the abdomen and spine, avoiding opioid narcotics, and encouraging early eating, which had already helped Northwestern Medicine reduce patients' average length-of-stay even before the AWAKE program began.
Stackhouse has mounted an excellent recovery, reporting that he's walking, mowing his lawn, and preparing his boat for an overdue fishing trip. His recovery was even faster than 45-year-old Trewaunda's, who was under general anesthesia.
"It's just a gift that you can give someone, just to think where he was spiraling to, it wasn't looking good," the preschool teacher told AFP. "You're restoring somebody's life."
Christopher Sonnenday, director of the Transplant Center at University of Michigan Health, praised the Northwestern Medicine team for their "important innovation in our field."
"Limiting exposure to general anesthesia has been shown to accelerate recovery across all surgical disciplines, and I am certain that benefit may be realized in kidney transplantation as well," he told AFP.
But experience will determine how broadly applicable such procedures will become, including whether they will extend to patients with underlying conditions such as obesity or cardiac disease.
F.Schneider--AMWN