A rare and life-saving kidney transplant was performed on a five-year-old boy in Bengaluru, with his 64-year-old grandmother stepping in as the donor, doctors at Fortis Hospitals said on Monday.

According to Dr Mohan Keshavamurthy, Principal Director of Urology, Uro-Oncology, Uro-Gynaecology, Andrology, Kidney Transplant and Robotic Surgery at Fortis Hospitals, who led the procedure, this is possibly the youngest reported case of a grandmother-to-grandson kidney transplant in India.

“Transplanting a much older person's kidney into a small child presents unique challenges such as size disparity and heightened immune response in paediatric patients, which increases the risk of graft rejection,” he said.