Following receipt of an organ donation, Schneider Children’s conducted marathon transplant surgeries that awarded a new lease of life to 4 critically ill children. An 8-year-old received a heart and lungs; an 11-year-old received a liver; and two 4- and 5-year-olds each received a kidney. All recipients recovered well. Medical teams comprising transplant surgeons, anesthetists, intensivists and nurses were summoned immediately upon word of the donation. The marathon surgeries began with the heart and lung transplant in a girl who suffered from rare high blood pressure in the lungs.

After her condition deteriorated and led to cardiac failure, pulmonologists in Schneider Children’s national Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic decided on a combined heart and lung transplant.

The follow-up care team included Dr. Tommy Schonfeld, Director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Ofer Schiller, senior intensivist, and Dr. Tamir Dagan, senior cardiologist, all of Schneider Children’s, and Prof. Mordechai Kremer, Director of the Pulmonary Institute at the neighboring adult hospital. Following the surgery, the girl was hospitalized in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit headed by Dr. Ovdi Dagan.

During the next surgery, the liver was implanted in a boy who had suffered from a metabolic disease since birth. Additionally, the child developed a malignant tumor in his liver for which he underwent chemotherapy. The transplantation of the new liver accomplished both the removal of the tumor as well as recovery from the metabolic disease. The surgery was performed by Dr. Ran Steinberg, Director of the Pediatric Organ Transplantation Unit at Schneider Children’s, Dr. Yevgeny Solomonov, senior physician in the transplantation units at Schneider Children’s and the neighboring adult hospital, and anesthesiologist, Dr. Eli Simhi. The child was hospitalized in the Department of Pediatrics C where follow-up care was supervised by senior gastroenterologist, Dr. Yaron Avitzur, and Dr. Helen Toledano, senior physician in the Hemato-Oncology Department at Schneider Children’s.

The two kidney transplantations took place simultaneously in a girl and boy who suffered from acute renal failure. The surgeries were conducted by Dr. Steinberg, senior transplant surgeons, Dr. Sigal Eisner and Dr. Ezra Shaharabani, surgeon Dr. Valery Karton and anesthesiologists Dr. Alex Trabkin and Dr. Michael Levinson. The recipients were hospitalized in the Pediatrics C Department and follow-up care was supervised by Dr. Miriam Davidovits, Director of the Pediatric Nephrology Unit at Schneider Children’s.

The majority of pediatric organ transplantations in Israel are conducted at Schneider Children’s Medical Center, which is one of the few pediatric institutions in the world that performs multiple transplantations at the same time.