U Marks Milestone In 100th Kidney Transplant

Surgeons at University Hospital yesterday reached a "milestone" in human organ transplantation by performing their lOOth kidney transplant operation. Mrs. Joyce Dunn, 36, of Pontiac became the 99th person to receive a new kidney at the U-M Medical Center, and Wesley Hanke, 46, of Nashville, Mich., the lOOth, in almost simultanous operations at the hospital. Both were reported in "fair" condition today. They received kidneys of Miss Maxine Hines, 16, of Dowagic who was fatally injured in an automobile accident on Sept. 27. Miss Hines never regained sciousness before her death at the local hospital early yesterday. Janice Ottenbacher, then 16, of Riehmond, Mich., was the first person to receive a new kidney at University Hospital in an operation on March 30, 1964. Her twin sister, Joan, was the donor. Now 21, the donor and recipiënt of Michigan's first kidney transplant are employed as student nurses at Mt. Clemens hospital and are enrolled at Port Huron Community College where they are taking registered nurses courses. Of the 100 kidney transplants performed at University Hospital, 61 were from related donors as in the case of the Ottenbacher twins, and 39 from non-related donors as in yesterday's operations. Eight patients have received a second kidney transplant. Survival rates of the recipients have gone up constantly as organ transplant techniques have been perfected, with the U-M reporting an 88 per cent survival rate for related donor transplants during the past year, and a 60 per cent survival rate for those receiving kidneys from non-related deceased donors. Progress in "tissue matching" techniques by Dr. Richard Haines and his staff at the U-M's Lane Laboratory of New GrowÖi as a key to missmatching donor and recipiënt, resulting in rejection, has apparently also been a factor in the improved survival rate. Improvement in surgical techniques have come through the efforts of Dr. Jeremiah G. Turcotte, head of the kidney transplant team, and his colleagues, and Dr. Donald R. Kahn, head of the heart and lung transplant team, and his colleagues. However, the "milestone" reached yesterday also heralds the work of scores of physicians, surgeons, mircobiologists, dietitians, chemotherapists, pediatricians, immunologists, nurses and social Iworkers at the U-M Medical Center. Teams of at least 30 persons are ïnvolved in the transplant operations. The Michigan Kidney Foundation with headquarters in Ann Arbor has long been active in supporting the kidney transplant program at the U-M. The foundation picks up the bill for all the blood used in dialysis and surgery as well as the costly drugs used after surgery to combat rejection of the new organ by the body. In 1966, the first kidney donor bank in the world was established in Ann Arbor by the foundation in cooperation with the U-M Medical Center. Since then more than 5,000 Michigan residents have pledged to give their kidneys to others upon their death and they carry a "kidney donor" sticker on their driver's license. Kidney specialists at University Hospital point out, however, that kidney transplant operations comprise only a part of their efforts to treat kidney disease, and is a "last resort" when other methods fail. When kidney failure occurs after various forms of treatment are used, doetors evalúate the patiënt for a transplant or use of an artificial kidney machine at home, a more confining I tion.