PROF MIGNON MCCULLOCH
MBBCH DCH DTM&H FRCPCH FCP(Paeds)
Full Professor & Head of Clinical Unit of Paediatric Nephrology and Solid Organ Transplantation at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town.
She is also a Paediatric Intensive Care (PICU) consultant.
She is also the immediate Past president of the International Paediatric Transplantation Society (IPTA) involved in promoting paediatric transplantation worldwide.
She is the Immediate Past-President of the South African Paediatric Association (SAPA) dealing specifically with COVID issues in the last 2 years as an important advocacy voice for children
Her other interests include Paediatric Nephrology and Care of Critically ill children specifically with AKI requiring all forms of dialysis in infants and children. This includes doing training Fellows and outreach work in various parts of Africa developing paediatric renal and transplant programs.
She is also an amateur surfer:-)
Review of adult living donor transplants in a paediatric kidney transplant program at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital (RCWMCH), Cape Town, South Africa (SA)
Babalwa Gili1, Khadija Abugrain2, Elmi Muller3, Fiona McCurdie4, Zunaid Barday6, Tinus Du Toit3, David Thomson3, Alp Numanoglu5, Dirk Von Delft5, Christel Du Buisson2, Jonathan Buckley2, Theresa Abdo2, Taryn Pienaar2, Deveshni Reddy2, Ashton Coetzee2, Peter Nourse2, Mignon I. McCulloch2.
1Paediatric Nursing, Red Cross War memorial Children's Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa; 2Paediatric Nephrology, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa; 3Adult Transplant Surgery, Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa; 4Adult Nursing, Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa; 5Paediatric Surgery, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa; 6Adult Nephrology, Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa
Introduction: RCWMCH is one of the major paediatric kidney transplant (PKTx) centres in South Africa. Only five African countries perform PKTx, of these, only South Africa has brain death legislation, therefore other countries rely on adult living donors for paediatric recipients. RCWMCH uses living as well as deceased donors for their transplant program and thus wanted to review how many living related donors presenting for workup where successful in donation.
Methods: This study is a single centre retrospective review of adult living donor workup between 2000 and 2021 for paediatric recipients. All living donors for RCWMCH patients are worked up and receive their donor surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital(GSH), which provides care to adults and collaborates with the RCWMCH’s transplant centre. .
Results:
Conclusion: RCWMCH/GSH successfully used adult living donors in 34% of our paediatric kidney transplant recipients even in small children (2 years, 10 kg) during the study period. On average we worked up about 1.4 donors per recipient, with preference given to better matched donors with lower co-morbidities. Almost a third of the proposed donors were found to be unsuitable due to hypertension, incompatible transplant immunology and raised BMI. A parent was a donor in 82% cases.
The option of using adult living donors in paediatric transplant recipient is encouraging for any new developing paediatric transplant program in Africa, where deceased donors are not an option.