The Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre at Kochi in Kerala has done it again.

In yet another first to its medical credit, the Amrita hospital successfully conducted the initial phase of a complex transplantation process which involved the first-ever windpipe transplantation in India and only the second known instance in the world, The New Indian Express reported. 

A team of doctors led by Dr Subramanya Iyer of the Head and Neck Department performed the transplantation on a 37-year-old female patient suffering from cancer in the trachea (windpipe), which is a four inch hollow tube connecting the pharynx and larynx to the lungs.

Experts term the entire transplantation procedure a highly complex affair and one that takes six weeks to complete.

The first phase sees the trachea implemented in one of the arms of the recipient and only after ensuring complete acceptance of the implanted trachea by the recipient’s body, will the trachea be re-implanted in its original location after six weeks.

This surgical achievement was made possible due to the willingness shown by the donor’s relatives who agreed to donate the organs of their relative Renjith V Thomas who suffered an inter-cranial brain hemorrhage and was declared brain-dead, the report states. 

One of his kidneys and liver will be donated to another patient in AIMS itself while his other kidney would be transplanted in a patient at Lourdes hospital and his eyes given to the Little Flower Hospital in Angamaly.

All the three hospitals are based in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. Renjith was a project designer in movies which include Masala Republic, a 2014 Malayalam political satire, adds the report.