ZAGREB, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Clinical Hospital Center of Rijeka, Croatia's third-largest city, has made a global medical breakthrough by successfully performing a kidney autotransplantation, the hospital said in a statement Monday.
Specialists in the hospital's urology department relocated the patient's kidney, compromised by a gynecological disease, to another part of the body where the kidney regained full function within the expected timeframe.
It marked a significant achievement for both the hospital and the broader European and global medical community, said local media, referring to kidney autotransplantation as an intricate surgery performed at only a few medical centers worldwide.
The urology department of Rijeka Hospital Center has been a reference center of the Croatian Ministry of Health for kidney transplants. ■