American doctors have carried out what is believed to be the world’s first simultaneous six-way kidney transplant.

Six recipients received organs from six donors in operations at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland.

The news emerged as British doctors confirmed that a two-way kidney transplant involving two pairs of patients and donors in Manchester and Cambridge took place this week – the third such operation in Britain.

The American transplants conducted on Saturday were made possible when a so-called altruistic donor, who was willing to donate to anyone, was found to be a match for one of six candidates.

Five patients already had a friend or relative as a willing donor but whose kidney was incompatible with theirs.

However, it did match another patient in need.

This meant that suddenly there were six people who could receive life-saving surgery simultaneously.

The ten-hour operations, involving six operating rooms and nine surgical teams, were carried out at the same time to make sure no one backed out after their loved one had received a kidney Robert Montgomery, director of Hopkins transplant centre and head of the transplant team, revealed yesterday: “All twelve are doing great, the six kidneys are working well.”

The six-way transplant follows a quintuple transplant performed in 2006 at the hospital and several triple transplants. Last week, doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago performed simultaneous transplants of four kidneys.

UK Transplant, which facilitates organ donation and transplant, said that the US was a pioneer in simultaneous transplant operations, which were still difficult to arrange in Britain.

“So far three simultaneous two-way transplants have been conducted in Britain, meaning six people have benefited from life-transforming kidney transplants,” a statement from the agency said.

“Based on the success of these procedures, the transplant community is confident that three-way pooled transplants can be considered in order to maximise the number of patients able to benefit.”

Living donor transplants – only necessary because of a critical shortage of organs from deceased donors – now account for about one in three of all kidney transplants in Britain.

There are nearly 7,000 people currently waiting for a kidney transplant, including 119 children. But there were only 1,248 such transplants in Britain in the past financial year.

It is hoped that at least additional 50 patients a year will benefit from a new database that seeks to match reciprocal couples as donors and recipients.

The first such transplant operation took place in July involving couples from Edinburgh and Cambridge, followed by a second in October at hospitals in Portsmouth and Plymouth.

The latest operation occurred on Tuesday at Manchester Royal Infirmary and Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and involved the respective donor organs being rushed across the country.

In addition, five altruistic donations have also taken place in Britain, with a sixth operation expected imminently, but these are not paired donations.

UK Transplant say that it will be some time before an altruistic paired donation would be feasible in Britain.

Randy Bolten, whose brother is President Bush’s chief of staff, Josh Bolten, was among the US donors. He could not donate a kidney to his wife, Jeanne Heise, but he was a match for another recipient.

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