Twin Transplant

In grafting skin or body organs from one human being to another, the best that surgeons can hope for with their present skills is a temporary "take." After a while, the recipient's system develops antibodies against the transplant and it withers away.* A transplanted kidney may serve as a crutch until the patient's own kidneys can recover, as apparently happened in the famed case of Chicago's Mrs. Howard Tucker (TIME, June 11, 1951). But last week Boston surgeons had the chance of a lifetime: to transplant a kidney to the donor's identical twin brother, with every hope of lasting success.

Richard Herrick, 23, a former coast guardsman of Northboro, Mass., had suffered a breakdown of kidney function (because of chronic inflammation) when he was admitted to Peter Bent Brigham Hospital a year ago. An artificial kidney tided him over that crisis, but lately Richard's kidneys have shown less and less ability to recover after successive attacks.

Only a surgical miracle could give him hope of lasting relief and near-normal life.

Brother Ronald, a student at Worcester State Teachers College, heard that a man could get along with only one kidney, and offered one of his to Richard. Satisfied that the twins were indeed identical (from a single ovum), so that there seemed to be little or no danger of hostile antibodies developing, the surgeons agreed to operate.

The surgical team headed by Urologist John Hartwell Harrison removed Ronald's healthy left kidney. They kept both Richard's diseased kidneys in place, and gave him Ronald's as a third, placing it below his own right kidney. After 4 hours of complex surgery, involving superfine stitching of delicate blood vessels, the doctors saw the transplanted kidney begin to function. They closed the wound (another hour), and soon the kidney excreted a pint of urine. At week's end both Richard and Ronald were doing well.

* This does not happen with blood vessels, which are commonly and successfully grafted.

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