Girl gets kidney in place of spleen (2)

(ANSA) - Turin, December 14 - A six-year-old girl had her spleen replaced with a kidney in a world first at Turin's Molinette Hospital on Wednesday. The revolutionary technique was used on a girl who has been in dialysis since birth because of a rare anomaly in the development of her kidney associated with a malformation of blood vessels which prevented her from drinking and urinating. The removal of her spleen enabled a kidney to be implanted on the splenetic tissue left, doctors said. Molinette Hospital is one of Italy's top centres of research.