Patna: Paras HMRI hospital conducted its first kidney transplant surgeries on Monday, the city's second private health-care facility in the city to offer the operation after Ruban Memorial Hospital, Patliputra.

The government-run Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) was the first hospital in the state to start kidney transplants in March 2016. Ruban Memorial started the surgery last year.

A team of Paras doctors along with a team from Muljhibai Patel Urological Hospital from Nadiad in Gujarat performed two kidney transplant surgeries. Both patients who received kidneys are in their 30s. The hospital administration didn't reveal their identity but said one patient who was from West Champaran district received a kidney from his wife while the other patient, from Araria district, received the kidney from his father.

The patient from West Champaran had been on dialysis for four months. The Araria patient was on dialysis for two years.

Head of Paras's nephrology department Dr Shashi Kumar, nephrology specialist Dr Rishi Kishor, urology department head Dr Ajay Kumar, urology specialist Dr Prabhat Ranjan, and anaesthetist Srinarayan were part of the transplant surgery team.

The team from Gujarat that assisted the Paras HMRI doctors included director, PG studies & research, of the hospital Dr Mohan Manohar Rajapurkar, medical director & managing trustee Mahesh R. Desai, and anaesthetist D. Mistry.

Paras HMRI director Talat Haleem said the first two kidney transplant surgeries were done free of cost and through laparoscopy (minimally invasive surgery).

"In traditional donor operation in which surgery is done to extract healthy kidney, the donor has to undergo a major operation where the kidney is removed through an incision," Haleem explained. "This open procedure is associated with significant pain and a substantial recuperation period for the donor. In contrast, in a laparoscopic donor surgery, tiny incisions are used and the kidney is removed using a scope or camera and special miniaturised surgical instruments."

Hospital sources said the hospital would charge around Rs 5 lakh for each transplant.

"In both the transplant surgeries, the condition of donor and recipient is okay," said Dr Shashi Kumar. "We are going to keep the patients in the hospital for 15 days."

He said the patients' human leukocyte antigen testing, to ascertain whether one's body would accept or reject another person's kidney, and cross-testing were done from a Delhi-based lab as these test sare not available in Bihar.

"The other tests were done at the hospital," he added.