Hue Central Hospital has just completed two kidney transplants using a LifePort organ transporter, bringing its total to five procedures. The record 18‑hour cold‑ischemia period shows how technology can extend organ viability.

The hospital said the two recent transplants were performed with the LifePort system, adding to three earlier surgeries. This brings the centre’s total number of kidney transplants using the device to five, including the longest preservation time recorded so far.

For the fifth transplant, a team travelled overnight by car for nine hours from Hue to Gia Lai to retrieve a kidney from a 22‑year‑old brain‑dead donor. The organ was placed immediately in a LifePort transporter, then flown from Pleiku to Ho Chi Minh City and on to Hue, keeping it cold for roughly 18 hours before surgery.

When blood flow was restored, the transplanted kidney turned pink, became firm and began producing urine while the 12‑year‑old recipient was still on the operating table. The boy produced about 3,000 ml of urine in the first 24 hours after the operation.

The hospital highlighted LifePort technology as crucial for preserving donated organs over long distances under cold‑ischemic conditions. It also noted that the success required close coordination among the national organ donation network, donor hospitals, retrieval and transportation teams, airlines and surgical staff.