Local teen in surgery for multiple transplant

By David Rumbach

Tribune Staff Writer

The Muston family, from left, father Gary, brother Jeremiah, cousin Janie Sloan and mother Darlene hold hands and pray with Ransom Muston before he was taken into surgery Wednesday morning at Clarian Transplant Center in Indianapolis Tribune Photo/BARBARA ALLISON

INDIANAPOLIS -- A 17-year-old from South Bend is undergoing a rare multivisceral transplant here today.

If successful, the operation at the Clarian Transplant Center will give Ransom Muston a working stomach and small intestines for the first time since he was 6 days old and suffered blood clots and ruptures that damaged the organs.

The teen also is getting a pancreas and liver. His own liver was damaged by longtime use of intravenous nutrition.

Fewer than 200 intestinal transplants are performed each year in the United States, compared with more than 2,100 heart transplants and more than 16,000 kidney transplants, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

The Mustons -- Ransom, parents Gary and Darlene, and brother Jeremiah -- had been hoping for a suitable donor since mid-April, when Ransom's place on the waiting list was activated. Last month, they were summoned to Indianapolis only to be sent home when doctors found the donor pancreas was not healthy.

The ring on Gary Muston's cell phone at 3:30 a.m. today meant that another donor had been found who was roughly Ransom's size and had the same blood type.

The call also ended worry that Ransom, who suffered four serious infections in the lines that nourished him intravenously, might not survive to receive the organs.

The eight- to 12-hour surgery is expected to be just the beginning of a drawn-out and dangerous ordeal for Ransom. The risk from organ rejection or infections will remain high for several weeks after the operation.

The operation on Ransom began at 11:30 a.m. Two teams of surgeons are involved. One team headed by Dr. Rodrigo Vianna is working slowly and carefully to remove Ransom's abdominal organs. At the same time, a second team is preparing the donor organs for transplantation.

The four organs are to be transplanted as a single block still interconnected by their original veins and arteries. Those existing interconnections will enable the surgeons to establish a blood supply to all of the donated organs in a relatively simple way: by hooking up just two large blood vessels, the aorta and the vena cava.

About 3 p.m., operating room nurse Carrie Sanders said the surgery was going well, with little loss of blood.

Although intestinal transplants have improved greatly in the past decade, more than 20 percent of recipients still die within the first three months, Vianna said in an earlier interview.

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This article posted October 9, 2006.