The Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), a constituent of the KIIT University, will organise the 24th Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation (ISOT) 2013 from October 25 to 27.
The conference will be attended by top neurologists, surgeons, immunogenetists, cardiologists, hematologists and transplant coordinators, among others.
The event is being held for the first time in Odisha, said KIMS Director Dr SC Dash, KIMS Principal Dr BC Das and eminent nephrologists including Dr NK Mahanty and Dr AC Mahakud at a news conference here on Wednesday.
They said organ transplantation is the most spectacular achievement of medical sciences in the 20th century. End-stage kidney failure patients can now hope to survive 15 to 20 years more or longer due to advancements in the field. In contrast, five decades ago this disease was uniformly fatal.
Chronic kidney failure is becoming a growing public health problem. It is caused by factors like increased incidence of diabetes, high blood pressure and industrial pollution of air and water.
The experts said that about 1.5 lakh patients in India need immediate dialysis followed by transplantation. Another 10 lakh patients are in different stages of chronic kidney disease, which would eventually develop into terminal kidney failure needing dialysis and transplantation.
But there are only 1,000 nephrologists and 200 kidney transplant surgeons in India, a number highly inadequate to meet the demand. Similarly, heart, liver and bone marrow transplantations are highly inadequate and done only in few centres in the country.
Organ transplantation is not a simple surgery; rather it can be called nephro-immuno surgery. The conference would discuss all these complex issues, besides that of organ harvesting in brain dead ICU patients. Nephrologists from the USA, the UK and Australia will also attend the conference.
The organising committee has decided to donate part of the fee collected to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund for Phailin relief and restoration works.