Ontario mother one of 10 in 'mind-boggling' kidney swap

Last Updated: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 | 2:12 PM ET

CBC News

A southern Ontario woman and her daughter were among 10 people who came together from across North America for a kidney swap doctors are calling the first quintuple kidney transplant.

For years 65-year-old Florence Jantzi wished she could donate her kidney to her 40-year-old daughter, Kristine, who has struggled with kidney failure since she was a child.

But her daughter was adopted and Jantzi was an incompatible donor.

"It looked like it was impossible to make a donation to her, and then we heard about this incompatible kidney transplant program at Johns Hopkins [Hospital] that gave us hope," said Florence, a Christian missionary who lives in the small town of Elmira, about 120 kilometres west of Toronto.

It took 12 surgeons working simultaneously in six operating rooms on five donors and five recipients to perform the transplant swap at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore last Tuesday. The operations lasted 10 hours.

Discussions of the swap began when four of the sick patients approached the hospital because they had a relative or spouse willing to donate a kidney, but they were incompatible donors.

Added to the group was a person who was on a waiting list for a kidney from a dead person, and a person willing to donate a kidney to anyone who needed it.

Patients recovering

The participants came from Ontario, Maine, Maryland, West Virginia, Florida and California. All of them were still recovering Monday.

"It really was mind-boggling to think that so many people could be helped because I was willing to give my kidney," said Jantzi.

Jantzi's daughter received her kidney from a West Virginian woman, Honore Rothstein, who told U.S. newspapers that she wanted to donate a kidney in honour of her daughter who died of a drug overdose.

Meanwhile, Florence's kidney went to a mechanic from Florida, George Brooks.

Johns Hopkins doctors have performed triple transplants before, but say it is the first time the hospital has taken part in a quintuple kidney transplant.