Bull terriers Zansi and Toni are headed to their St. Petersburg, FL, home today after a rare yet successful canine renal transplant last week performed by Drs. Lillian Aronson and Heidi Phillips at the Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital. Fourteen-month old Toni donated a kidney to her sister in a seven-hour operation that was needed to save Zansi's life. Before coming to Penn Vet, Zansi received hemodialysis at the University of Florida under the supervision of Dr. Carsten Bandt. Owner Jennifer O'Brien met with the Penn Vet surgeons today for discharge instructions before leaving for home.

Dr. Heidi Phillips and Her Team are Performing a Canine Renal Transplant Today

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Dr. Heidi Phillips and her team are performing a canine renal transplant today. Please see story and video link on CBS 3. "Surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania are gearing up to perform a kidney transplant that is anything but routine as the recipient walks on four legs..."

There is a long history of dog renal transplantation technique at Penn Vet. In 1971, JAVMA published two papers by Dr. David Nunamaker and his colleagues regarding kidney transplants and dialysis. He writes, " I did a number of dogs with Dr. Berg but we did them as temporary dialysis treatments since we could not control rejection and we didn't have hemodialysis available. We even developed a treatment for antifreeze poisoning in dogs."

Dr. Paul Berg wrote a monograph describing liver transplants in the dog as well, truly the "first" liver transplant at Penn. The transplantation paper was presented at the ACVS in February 1969 at the Philadelphia meeting.

In addition to renal transplantation for dogs, Dr. Donawick at New Bolton Center was doing his heart transplants at about the same time in calves.

Berg P, Nunamaker DM, Amand W, Harvey C, Klide A:  A renal allograft in a dog poisoned with ethylene glycol.  JAVMA 159:468, 1971.
Nunamaker DM, Medway W, Berg P:  Treatment of ethylene glycol poisoning in the dog.  JAVMA 159:310, 1971.

Feline Renal Transplantation Program

The Feline Renal Transplantation Program at Penn Vet was successfully initiated in February 1998 by Dr. Lillian R Aronson, Associate Professor of Small Animal Surgery. You can learn more on our web site about the kidney transplant program for cats, which recently celebrated the 100th surgery.  We welcome you to download and read more in Bellwether, (number 66)  the alumni publication of Penn Veterinary Medicine.