On November 18, 2023, MOHAN Foundation organised a masterclass on “Counselling for Swap Donation", a workshop in collaboration with the Network and Alliance of Transplant Coordinators (NATCO), for its employees and NATCO members. The workshop was supported by the SBI Foundation.

When a living kidney donor and recipient are deemed incompatible, a paired kidney exchange, sometimes referred to as a "kidney swap," takes place, wherein the kidneys are given to those of another donor/recipient pair. This implies that two live donor transplants would take place at the same time. Usually, a swap transplant entails the exchange of organs between two families whose members are unable to give the organ to each other due to a blood group mismatch. Nephrologists think that this would reduce the kidney shortage and make it lawful to do more transplants.

The objective of the masterclass was to provide attendees with knowledge regarding "swap donation" by providing pertinent examples and vital information. Dr. Subho Banerjee, Associate Professor, Department of Nephrology, Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre (IKDRC-ITS), Ahmedabad, and Mr. Hardik Balubhai Jethva, Transplant Coordinator, IKDRC-ITS, Ahmedabad, were invited faculties for the session.

Dr. Subho explained the following topics in detail:

• Basic principles of kidney-paired donation (KPD)

• Key features of IKDRC KPD programmes

• Formalities of KPDs

• A brief history of KPD

• Counselling for swap donations: recipient and donor

• Examples of swaps

• Non-anonymous allocation

• Reasons for enlisting in the KPD programme

• The ISOT-KPD guidelines.

• Why should compatible pairs join the KPD exchange?

• Hurdles in “Living Donor” kidney transplants

• TX and ABO-incompatible transplants: logistics and costs

• Why do KPD programmes lag behind ABO-incompatible programmes?

• Main hurdles in KPD programmes

• Legal aspects of KPD in India: The deal breakers

Mr. Hardik shared the process of registration and details about the required tests for swap donations with the help of sample registration forms and required documents.

The participants posed the following queries:

• If a donor is shifted from a government hospital to a civil hospital, then what will be the charges?

• What are the required tests for swap donations?

• What is a suitable match for a swap donation?

• How helpful is the ASTRA transplant registry at Apex Hospital for swap transplants?

• Please share an example of a difficult counselling case and how it was handled.

• What are sensitising patients?

A total of 63 participants attended the session.