Dr. Anant Kumar, Secretary, ISOT

The 11^th ISOT meeting was held in Calcutta from 29^th to 31^st Jan. 1999. It was well attended by 150 delegates and Dr. Piyush N. Joshi was the guest from Tennessee, USA. He delivered a lecture on “current status of Simultaneous Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation”. There were 25 free papers presented by the various delegates. They were 5 symposia on (1) Cadaveric organ donation and organ transplantation. (2) Cyclosporine: An Indian perspective. (3) Use of Erythropoietin in pre and post transplantation. (4) Liver transplantation. (5) Cardiac and lung transplantation.

In the cadaveric organ transplantation symposium, Dr. Anant Kumar highlighted the various problems faced by transplant surgeons and what could be done to overcome them. Dr. M.Minz, Chandigarh spoke about how to identify a brain dead donor and declare brain death. Dr. Hariharan from Chennai gave various practical tips to get consent. He emphasised that it was very important for the ICU team to get involved in the consent process as patients’ families had faith and rapport with them. Professor R. K. Sharma spoke on preparation of recipient and Dr. Vatsala Trivedi from Mumbai on organ allocation and co-ordination. Dr. Sunil Shroff, Chennai discussed the management of brain dead donor. Dr. Piyush Joshi from Tennessee illustrated the various steps of organ harvesting. Dr. Guleria from Delhi spoke on preservation of organs and at the end professor Aacharya discussed the current status and future prospects of cadaver transplantation.

Cardiac and liver symposia were also held and were greatly appreciated. The convenors were Dr. Madhu Shankar from Chennai and Dr. Rajshekar from Delhi. ISOT will have a regular feature in future from the non-renal groups in the future.

The paper entitled “Cyclosporin conversion in liver related renal transplantation: Is it necessary?” presented by Dr. D. Dubey and Dr. Anant Kumar SGPGIMS, Lucknow, was awarded the best paper and the second best paper was awarded to Dr. J. R. Rathod, Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai.