LOS ANGELES — Two urologists are on the verge of a major medical breakthrough — performing the world’s first bladder transplant in humans.
Dr. Inderbir Gill and Dr. Nima Nassiri with Keck Medicine of USC say their research started a few years ago as patient visits slowed down during the pandemic.
“Lately, uterine transplants have been done, and the uterus is sitting right next to the bladder, so that got us thinking why not also explore the bladder,” said Gill, who’s the founding executive director for USC Urology.
They say hundreds of millions of people around the globe experience different degrees of bladder disease and dysfunction.
“The bladder is a bit forgotten in that other organs like kidney, heart, lungs, take precedence naturally, but you also can’t live that well without a bladder and so, I think the options that are available to those patients right now are very limited right now,” said Nassiri, an urologic surgeon, researcher and Gill’s collaborator on the clinical trial.
“When we take out someone’s bladder, we make a new bladder out of the intestine or bowel. That works well enough, but it’s not perfect,” Gill said.
He added that the procedure can often come with a high risk of negative short and long-term side effects.
“Our hope here is to try and replace the diseased bladder with a more normal bladder as opposed to the use of the intestine, thereby eliminating the potential problems.”
The urologists say bladder transplants have never been done before, partly because of the complicated vascular structure of the deep pelvic area and the technicality required.
“That far, deep down in the pelvis, the vascular structure that you need to maintain the integrity of the bladder is quite complex,” Nassiri said.
Gill and Nassiri say that is where robotics plays a key role. Surgeons use a high definition 3-D camera to guide a robot to do surgery with more precision than is possible with hand-held surgical tools.
“It gives us the technical dexterity, the magnification, the exposure that is essential in my view to be able to remove the bladder with its attached blood supply,” Gill said.
Gill and Nassiri have successfully completed five practice transplant surgeries using research donors who are brain dead, but have beating hearts. Now, they are searching for their first patient to be part of their clinical trial. They hope to perform the transplant surgery in the coming months.
“To have this opportunity to be in a position to potentially advance the field in this manner is just so exciting!” Gill said.
“As soon as I heard about it, I wanted to get involved,” Nassiri said.
Pioneering a procedure that could change urology and the lives of their patients.
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