Patient Stories

Two Arab Israeli Sisters Await Transplants
7/27/06

Two Arab Israeli children, just 8 and 19 months old, are now in Miami awaiting lifesaving transplants at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center. Both girls suffer from a rare digestive disorder.

Janna Awad and her sister were both born with microvillous inclusion disease, which inhibits their ability to process food.  Both have been nourished intravenously since shortly after birth, but that process can cause liver damage.  Now the only option for both girls is a multi-organ transplant.  “I did research of transplant centers all over the world and that’s when I learned about UM/JMH,” said Hala Awad, the girl’s mother.  “Our doctor also recommended that we come here,” said Awad, who is a junior high school English teacher.

“About 250 of these operations have been done worldwide,” said Andreas G. Tzakis, MD, PhD, director of the Division of Liver and Gastrointestinal Transplantation at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. “We’ve done about 130 of these procedures here.  Still, this surgery is very dangerous.”  Tzakis pointed out that when surgeons began doing these multi-organ transplants in 1994 the one-year survival rate was about 50 percent.  Now patients have an 80 percent survival rate, which improves even more as patients live beyond their first couple of years.

Because these girls are so young they can only receive organs donated from very small children.  Also, because of the liver damage, Janna and Halla have trouble building tissue, leaving them more fragile than healthy peers. Still, all in all, Dr. Tzakis says the Awad sisters have obviously been well-cared for and are strong enough for the procedures. The hope is that organs will become available before they become so sick they will need to be hospitalized while they wait.  Because Janna is older, her disease is more advanced.  Her condition is expected to become critical over the next month or two.
“One or two months is about how long it usually takes for us to get organs for young children,” said Tomoaki Kato, MD, director of pediatric transplant surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.  “Janna is very sick. She needs a transplant as soon as possible”.
For the full story go to http://med.miami.edu/news/view.asp?id=651

First of two Arab Israeli child receives a rare, life-saving transplant in Miami
8/4/06

A gravely ill 19-month Arab Israeli girl underwent a seven-hour multivisceral transplant at the University of Miami Thursday night. A team led by surgeons Andrea Tzakis, MD, PhD, and Tomoaki Kato, MD, transplanted a liver, stomach, pancreas, spleen, small and large intestines into Janna Awad.
For the full story go to http://med.miami.edu/news/view.asp?id=658

Second Arab-Israeli sister receives life-saving transplant
3/21/07

Halla Awad celebrated her first birthday a couple of months ago while awaiting a lifesaving multi-organ transplant – the same transplant that saved her 2 year old sister, Janna.  Now both girls can expect to see many more. “Previously this disease was always fatal,” said Andreas Tzakis, MD, co-director of the Division of Transplantation and Chief of the Division of Liver and Gastrointestinal Surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.  But Halla’s surgery went so well that she is now eating normally and gaining weight.
For the full story go to http://med.miami.edu/new/view.asp?id=739

Cochlear Implant Works: Amina Hears for the first time
8/25/06

Amina sat in a small room with 14 people watching. The Iraqi girl did not disappoint.  She placed a toy up to her right ear and smiled, her face lighting up as she acknowledged what her father was hoping.   She was hearing for the first time.

Thanks to Dr. Thomas Balkany, MD, professor and chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology at the Miller School of Medicine. Amina will now begin a life of normalcy.  Dr. Balkany successfully placed a cochlear implant in Amina’s ear on August 9th, and the device was turned on for the first time on August 24th.
For the full story go to http://med.miami.edu/news/view.asp?id=663

The Gift of Life

Your baby has two months to live. There is nothing you can do. Ryoji and Hiromi Kandatsu, of course, were devastated.  Their daughter, Ayaka, was only ten months old. And then, watching television news two weeks later, a miracle appeared on the screen.
His name was Yosuke Ohashi.

Baby Yosuke was being discharged from Holtz Children’s Hospital at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Center after a life-saving six-organ transplant.  He had the surgery at just 11 months old and now, at a year-and-a half, he was going home.  The Kandatsus did not know their only hope for their daughter was a multiorgan transplant, but they hadn’t even considered it, nor had their physicians.  It was out of the question in Japan because the country prohibits the use of organs from a deceased patient under the age of 15.

“The huge issue is the lack of understanding of organ transplantation,” explains Tomoaki Kato, MD, assistant professor of clinical surgery at the University of Miami and a worldwide pioneer in mulitvisceral transplants.  In Japan family members cannot donate the organs of a loved one without a donor card signed by the donors themselves while they are alive.  Children under 15 are too young to sign a consent card. Unfortunately, in Japan there is a powerful reason for this.  In 1968 a Japanese physician attempted the first heart transplant.  After the surgery, questions were raised over whether the donor was really brain dead before the organ was taken.  The surgeon was charged with murder, and although he was acquitted, the die was cast.

For 30 years, “there were uneasy feelings towards organ transplantation,” Kato says.  Japan actually led research into non-cadaveric transplantation, like living-donor partial
liver and kidney transplants.  But it wasn’t until 1998 that lawmakers legalized deceased-donor transplants – and only in adults. Since 1998 in Japan, there have been 41 deceased donors. More than 4,700 transplants have occurred on the UM Miller School campus in that time- nearly 50 a month.

Ayaka became a cause celebre at home, and reporters from newspapers and TV networks in Japan spent months in Miami shadowing the family – and Kato.  The high profile allowed the Kandatsus to raise more than $1 million in just two weeks for their trip.  Then donor organs became available just days after the family arrived in Miami.

“I never dreamed the solution would come this quickly,” said Ryoji Kandatsu, Ayaka’s father.  “This is a very precious gift from the donor and the donor’s family.” The gift of life.