Govt permits multi-pair kidney transplantation in regd centres

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has permitted multi-pair kidney transplantation in all the registered transplant centers across the state. 

The guidelines called the ‘Karnataka Multi-Pair Kidney Paired Exchange Transplantation Guidelines, 2026’ came into effect on Monday. 

A significant number of donor-recipient pairs in Kamataka are unable to undergo transplantation due biological incompatibility, including blood group mismatch, positive crossmatch or HLA incompatibility, the order read. 

Kidney paired exchange or swap transplantation is an internationally recognised, scientifically validated and ethically accepted procedure to resolve biological incompatibility. 

Under this procedure, Person A whose close relatives cannot provide a kidney to them, Person B with the same condition and Person C with the same condition - the relatives of each patient can provide a kidney to the other patient in exchange for receiving a kidney to their own family member. 

To minimise complications, the government in its guidelines said that all donors across the swap group shall be biologically compatible with respective swap recipients to whom they are proposed to donate and they should all get into a single agreement.

The government has also said that there must be no commercial transactions between any of the three family members or patients. 

The authorisation committee must approve every procedure. Cases involving transplantation across multiple hospitals or multiple districts require joint co-ordination between the respective hospital-level authorisation committees and the state-level authorisation committee.

The authorisation committee must make sure that the proposed swap group is constituted exclusively of near-relative donor-recipient pairs, compatibility of cross-matching across pairs and no individual donor recipient has been excluded from the agreement signed. 

All participants must be individually interviewed and video-recorded by the committee, the order said. 

All the participants must provide voluntary information, fitness and medical certification and proof of near relatives.

The surgical procedures within a multi-pair swap group should ordinarily be conducted simultaneously. When simultaneous conduct is not operationally feasible, transplants may be conducted in a closely co-ordinated sequence approved by the Authorisation Committee.

The transplantation must be registered with State Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (SOTTO).