Little Mark was born with a severe kidney condition, and after complications from strep throat, his life depended on nightly medical procedures. The donor was a 44-year-old man from Rivne, whose family consented to the transplant.
Five-year-old Mark from the Zakarpattia region was given the chance to live a full life without constant, exhausting medical procedures. At the “Okhmatdyt” Children’s Medical Center in Lviv, surgeons performed a kidney transplant from a deceased donor.
The press office of the Lviv Children’s Medical Center reported on the young patient’s recovery.
Two years of nighttime dialysis and a critical complication
Mark was born with congenital ureteral abnormalities and anatomically underdeveloped kidneys. Despite the complex diagnosis, the child held on, but at the age of three, after suffering from acute tonsillitis, his body suffered a serious breakdown—his kidneys failed completely, and doctors diagnosed end-stage renal failure.
To save his life, the child needed regular dialysis. Since the family lives in Zakarpattia and traveling to Lviv three times a week was extremely difficult, doctors in Lviv selected and set up a home peritoneal dialysis system. For nearly two years, every evening, the boy’s mother, Angelina, connected her son to a special machine, whose purification cycle lasted about 12 hours each night.
A Life-Saving Call and the New Organ’s Function
The long-awaited news of a match arrived in the middle of the night. The lifesaving deceased donor was a 44-year-old man from Rivne, whose family, at the most difficult moment, made the compassionate decision to consent to the donation.
The complex surgical procedure took place on October 18:
- the new organ began to function fully almost immediately on the operating table;
- less than a day after the transplant, all of the child’s critical lab values stabilized and returned to normal;
- just a few days after the procedure, little Mark was back on his feet, moving around the hospital room on his own, has a good appetite, and is regaining his strength.
“I am infinitely grateful to the donor’s family for making such an incredibly difficult decision and giving my son the chance to continue living, growing, and discovering the world,” said the boy’s mother, Angelina.
Further Rehabilitation and Clinic Statistics
Currently, the young boy from Zakarpattia is undergoing a course of immunosuppressive therapy under the close supervision of nephrologists and transplant specialists at the Center to prevent the risk of donor organ rejection.
At the Lviv Children’s Hospital “Okhmatdyt,” the transplant program operates at the highest level: since the hospital opened, 36 kidney transplants have been performed on children, 12 of which have taken place since the beginning of this year. Currently, approximately 50 patients who have been given a new lease on life thanks to donor organs are under the constant medical care of the center’s specialists.
