India's First Kidney Transplant: A Look Back at 1971
India performed its first successful kidney transplant on 1 December 1971 at Christian Medical College, Vellore, decades after the world's first kidney transplant in Boston in 1954. This milestone marked the beginning of organized transplant medicine in India.
The procedure built on centuries of surgical knowledge, tracing back to Sushruta's pioneering reconstructive techniques around 600 BCE. What started as a single operation has grown into a national network coordinated by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO).
Today, thousands of transplants are performed across India every year, but the gap between the number of patients waiting and the number of available organs remains wide. Understanding this history helps explain why continued awareness and donor registration matter more than ever.