A husband who decides to donate his kidney to help save his wife’s life will feature in the latest episode of a BBC television series.
In the third episode of ‘Surgeons: At the Edge of Life’, which provides an insight into the surgery work at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, surgeons perform a living donor transplant.
The transplant comes after husband Marcus agrees to give up one of his kidneys to help wife Tracey, who has been living with one kidney when her right kidney failed due to sustained high blood pressure.
Last year, Tracey was diagnosed with end stage kidney failure in her remaining kidney and needed daily dialysis or she would die, meaning the best long-term solution for her would be a kidney transplant.
After finding out he was compatible with his wife, Marcus, 44, underwent an operation to remove the organ by Professor Michael Nicholson, a keyhole surgery pioneer.
This is followed by the operation to transplant the kidney into Tracey by consultant transplant surgeon Miss Irum Amin and clinical lead for transplant surgery, Mr Neil Russell.
Without a kidney transplant, Tracey would have to wait up to two years for a kidney from a deceased donor if her husband was not compatible.
Another operation is also due to feature on the programme, where surgeons try to help patient Danny who has spent more than 20 years with Crohn’s Disease.
Danny, a father-of-two who has lived with the inflammatory bowel disease since he was a teenager, found his Crohns’s Disease flare up causing his bowel to perforate and resulting in a leak into his abdomen and sepsis.
Now in remission, Danny is fit enough to have surgery to try and reconnect his small and large bowel, remove his stoma and allow him to pass waste normally.
READ MORE: Addenbrooke's Hospital to feature in BBC surgery series
This latest series follows two other highly acclaimed series of 'Surgeons: At the Edge of Life' filmed at Addenbrooke's over the last two years.
Dr Ashley Shaw, medical director at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The series continues to showcase the excellent work that goes on at this hospital and the advances we are making in theatres and elsewhere to continually improve patient outcomes.”
The latest episode is due to air on BBC Two at 9pm on February 1.
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