It is sometimes hard to find a donor who matches your recipient profile. Swap transplant is a way to increase your chances of getting a perfect donor.
You no longer have to settle for dialysis treatment, but can look for paired donor exchange. Apex Swap Transplant Registry (ASTRA) is the right solution for you.
Register the donor-recipient pair in the Apex Swap registry with all the relevant details needed for organ transplant match.
When the next pair matches your profile, ASTRA will get you connected with them so that further formalities can be completed.
You can then coordinate with your respective consulting nephrologists, get relevant tests done and opt for an organ transplant.
Swap transplant involves an exchange of the organ between two families, who cannot donate the organ to their own family member because of blood group mismatch. This is in a sense ‘paired exchange’.
This would minimise this shortfall of organs and increase transplant numbers legally. An unique opportunity has arisen in the form of Swap transplant program. In this method there is a mechanism for organ sharing between two unrelated donor-recipient pairs.
By doing a swap, two patients with kidney failure who in normal circumstances cannot undergo a transplant because of blood group mismatch within that family, can now go ahead with kidney transplantation.
ASTRA is a database of patients who need kidney transplant along with their family-donors who cannot donate their kidney because of blood group mismatch. This data base is scientific and credible. The computer generates swap pairs based on a few criteria like age of the donor, lymphocyte cross match, etc. ASTRA will register patients and donors, search and match pairs from the data pool and identity compatible donor-patient pairs.
After the completion of the registration, your nephrologists will be informed and your surgery will be performed by his transplant team at the hospital, of his and your choice. Astra will only complete the task of generating compatible pairs, and will hand them over to the respective nephrologists. They wont function beyond this responsibility
“More the people register, faster the kidneys will match" – hence tell all the patients in your dialysis unit to register.
Swap transplant is a humanitarian effort of Apex. This is their non profit initiative. Apex does not even gain a small fraction of amount, or the cost of managing this registry. The sole ambition is to increase the number of living donor transplants successfully and legally. Our gains are the good wishes we receive from the patients successfully transplanted through ASTRA.
I had undergone the SWAP kidney Transplant in Hinduja Hospital. Whereas other swap patient was operated in Bombay Hospital simultaneously. ASTRA took a great task to find suitable kidney donor which helped me to start my life with new hopes.
Anand D. NawaleApex Swap Transplant Registry was recommended to me by Dr Tarun Jeloka, Consultant Nephrologist and Transplant Physician, Pune. With their help and cooperation, within span of six months, my transplant was successfully done.
PSV Raman and Jayalakshmi RamanIndia witnessed its first domino swap kidney transplant surgery on the 25th of June 2013. ASTRA (Apex Swap Transplant registry) made this possible. This was a result of about 2 years of hard work and the second attempt. The first attempt resulted in failure and collapse of the chain due to the death of a patient due to delays in getting the permissions which did not come through event after 9 months. This time around, it took 8 months to rebuild a new chain (only one patient – donor pair was common). The Maharashtra government was very cooperative and we could perform the five transplants simultaneously and successfully on the 25th June. It was a big effort – sensitising the staff, booking 10 theatres across three hospitals ( Bombay Hospital, Hinduja Hospital, Hiranandani Hospital), and 40 senior doctors including surgeons, anaesthetists and nephrologists working together. The patients were across socioeconomic class and religion – one is a road side barber. We hope that this successful operation opens a new door to many more such dominos across the country giving an opportunity of getting a well-fit kidney to the patients who would otherwise land up on dialysis or get a lesser fit kidney with a binary swap.
The ASTRA is strictly a medical match-making agency. Once a patient is referred to the ASTRA, he would be registered. And as soon as a possible, a swap match is generated by the database, this information would be conveyed to the 2 primary Nephrologists, of the two patients.
Further workup, assessment, legal formalities, organisation of the logistics of the transplant as well as the procedure of transplant would be the prerogative of these two nephrologists, in mutual consultation.
The ASTRA does not participate in the actual transplant surgery and is not liable for any of the consequent events following the generation of the match.
