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Transplant Patients are Living Longer

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Anyone who needs an organ transplant is likely concerned about quality of life after the transplant – as well as the length of life. Not everyone who has a transplant fairs well, but there are new advances being made all the time. More transplant patients are living much longer than they did in the past, regardless of what kind of transplant they’ve had. Advances in medicine have been able to help people get through serious medical procedures like transplants, and doctors are learning more about them each day. Because medicine has been able to continue to move forward, the failure of an organ over time is no longer a death sentence for every person who experiences it.

If you need an organ transplant, you’ll want to find the right doctor, too. All doctors who do transplants are trained to do so, but some have had more experience with your kind of transplant and specific medical issues than others have. That’s important to remember, because the doctor who’s right for someone else might not be the one who’s right for you. Take the time to get to know your doctor a little bit. If you aren’t sure he’s the right one for the transplant, seek a second opinion.

Obviously, some transplants are critical and you won’t have time to look around at different doctors. For most cases, though, the person knows that the need for a transplant is coming. That gives the patient time to decide on the best course of action, the doctor he feels most comfortable with, and other factors. You don’t have to settle when it comes to your health, and you should make sure that you feel good about the upcoming surgery and the doctor who will be performing it. Being an informed patient can be a great choice for anyone needing a transplant.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Donors, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

Getting the Best Transplant Physician

people who need a transplant are often scared, and that’s understandable. If you’re facing a transplant, no matter what organ it is, you can ease some of your anxiety by finding the right physician. That way you won’t have to be concerned who’s hands you’re in during the operation. That doesn’t mean that there are bad transplant physicians out there. All of them are highly trained. Some of them, though, may have more experience with your specific kind of transplant and medical condition than others. If possible, seek out one of these doctors, so you don’t have to be as worried about your transplant.

Talking with your physician beforehand is also a good idea. You want to know a little bit about the person who’s performing your transplant. Generally, you will have the opportunity to see your surgeon several times before you actually have the transplant, so you should feel relatively comfortable with him on the day of the procedure. Some transplants are scheduled, but others can only be done when an organ comes available. That means you could get a call at any time, day or night, and have to get to the hospital for surgery. While that can be stressful, the outcome of a successful transplant will be well worth it.

Once your transplant has been completed and you recover from it, you can have a life that’s actually very normal. Most people go on to lead rich, full lives after they’ve had a transplant. There have even been cases of heart transplant patients who’ve been able to run marathons. While not everyone has that amazing of an outcome, a transplant can restore normal life activities to someone who would not have been able to survive otherwise. That’s very important and finding the right physician can go a long way toward securing that outcome.

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Uniform Anatomical Gift Act

Uniform Anatomical Gift Act was passed by the United States in 1968 to harmonize the various practices related to the increasing organ transplantations. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act makes sure that the donations of organs are followed in an ethical manner. It is specially drafted for the purpose of different kinds of transplantation and still holds valid till this day. Thou some modifications and additions have been made, this is still the basic law that it was in 1968. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act along with the National Organ Transplant Act passed in 1984 are the only two laws that govern organ transplantation.
The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act covers even the donation of bodies to medical institutions and to hospitals to use the body parts to teach students and to help other patients with them. This law also gives the right to the next of kin to decide the fate of the dead relative in the absence of a deed or a document. It also reduces the right over a deceased by the health care providers who used to take out organs without the permission of the relatives or the deceased person herself. It makes such kind of practices by the hospitals illegal in all the states of America. The law was modified further along the way to make the process of anatomical gifting much simpler and easier. A legal document was made necessary for anatomical organ gifting along with the presence of witnesses and a testamentary. Looking at the number of people dying in road accidents, this law made the practice of including the person’s request of gifting her orphans to be notated on the driver’s license. If you or your kin are thinking of donating organs to someone or an institute, this is a very important act to know about.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Donors, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

National Organ Transplant Act

The National Organ Transplant Act was passed in 1984 to solve the increasingly complex problems associated with organ transplantation. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act of 1969 was not capable of handling the increasing number of donations and health institutions. Hence this act was released in 1984 to cover the lop holes and handle various other issues related to transplantation. It was the first act that structured the process of organ transplantation and had its roots in the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. Various policies regarding patients, donors, hospitals and other organizations were made. It also made specific policies for high transferred organs such as liver, kidney and other commonly transferred organs.

This act made a new establishment that was authorized with the power to handle all donations and donors. The Task Force on Organ Transplantation also was given the responsibility of establishing, planning and operating the organizations. It was also meant to train organizations so that they can handle procedures of organ transplantation and handling. An Organ Procurement and Transplantation network was also set up under this act to make easier the distribution of organs so that no organs go waste or no patient waits for too long for an organ that she dies. For this a computerized scientific registry was setup that eased the process of handling and maintenance of organ registries. It also handles funds for allocation to institutions that specialize in procurement of organs. It has successfully reduced the number of deaths because of people waiting a long time for an organ. Hence this act was quite successful in modernizing the process of organ transplantation. It also recognized the need for a professional way of dealing with kidney transplantations which are legalized under certain conditions and payments to the donor. Know this act as best as you can if you require an organ or plan to donate one.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Donors, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

Organs From Prisoners

There are more than a million peoples on waiting lists for organs for transplantation. Only a fraction of the needs of these prisoners are met by number of organs that make their way to procurement organization. The increasing reluctance of people to donate organs for the needy is making this process much more harder. If even half of the people who die every day, agree on donating their organs, the number of people on waiting lists will become very less. Since this is not going to happen in the near future, one alternative is looked at as a potential source of organs. Prisoners on death row can be used to obtain organs. There are a few hundred prisoners who are executed every day, at least a fraction of the requirement can be met by harvesting these prisoners for their organs and giving them to people who deserve to live.

Currently it is illegal to harvest organs from prisoners without their written consent. Since the prisoners are criminals of the society, they belong to the society. Their bodies after death are owned by the government and it can pass regulations to procure organs from these. In united Stated a number of federal acts make it illegal to procure organs from prisoners. One of this is the National Transplant Act that was passed in 1984 that makes the donation of any organs or tissues regulatory and prohibited. Many requests by subsequent law makers to push prisoners to agree to donate organs have never made it out of draft stage, wasting thousands of organs that could have saved many lives. Since the buying and selling of organs in illegal in united states, any law that asks inmates to donate their organs for special privileges is going against the law. The only place where obtaining organs from prisoners is legal is in China.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Donors, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

Lab Grown Organ

Macrophages have identified a cancer cell (the...
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Almost every patient on the waiting list of an organ transplantation wait list wishes that there was a supermarket where they could go easily and get organs from off the shelf that fits their needs. This wish of theirs might be closer to reality that thought. Researchers are learning to grow fresh organs in labs using a stream of life science known as tissue engineering. Scientists have managed to grow organ’s that meet the specific need of patients and have much lower chance of rejection than other donated organs.

The transplanted organs have a high rate of rejection by the body’s own immune system. To suppress the immune system, toxic drugs are used that quiet down the immune system and help in acceptance of the organ by the body. But even then, there are high chances of the organ being rejected by the body. Also the problem with transplanted organs is that they will have diseases and pathogens that the donator might have accumulated over his lifetime. If these diseases are very dangerous, the patient with the transplant has the same amount of chance of getting the disease as the donor had. Hence these transplants are in no way safe.

Tissue engineering is a fast growing science where organs are grown from the stem cells of the patient and grow an organ literally from a single cell. One such company is Tengion. This company has successfully created a Neo Bladder in a laboratory. This in vitro bladder is in its phase two testing stage and is making its way to the people who are in need of these. The results so far of the transplantation have been very promising and have been able to prove that lab grown organs are much more safer and have more acceptability by the body.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Donors, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

Opting In Versus Opting out

Opting In and Opting Out are two different methods of donation methodologies that are followed in different regions around the world. In opting in method, the organ donator has to sign up with transplantation procurement institution to be able to donate her organs. But even after that the decision to reject the donation or accept the donation lies in the hands of the relatives like spouse, children or parents. Only after they agree to donate the organs of the dead person, will the organ be released to the procurement team. This is a very length and a big hurdle to the process of organ transplantation. This is widely followed in United States and many other countries. Most of the time the relatives do not understand the feelings behind the donation or they just don’t believe there is an afterlife after donating an organ and end up burying their dead along with the organs which could save another human beings life.

The opt out process on the other hand is a much more refined version of the opt in method that is followed in Untied States. The opt out process has removed all the hurdles that are found in the opt in system. Here all the individuals are taken to be donors and they are taken to be agreeable to organ donation unless they disagree. This is a much better alternative to the opting in method where individuals need to volunteer. Here every person is taken as a donor. The part where relatives need to agree to organ donation is still present but even then this is a much better alternative. It is currently followed in countries such as Italy, Spain, Norway, France, Finland, Belgium, etc. Many people don’t even know what organ transplantation is. The opting in method relies on an all agreed process which has proven efficiency in getting organs for the people who are in need.

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Bone Marrow Transplantation

A bone marrow harvest.
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Blood cancer or Leukemia is a disease of the bone marrow where the blood producing cells known as hematopoietic stem cells create bad blood cells that are abnormal and cancerous. These spread to other parts of the body, therefore spreading cancer to other parts of the body. In chemotherapy, these bone marrow cells are destroyed to stop the bone marrow from producing these abnormal can carcinogenic cells. It is very important that these bone marrow cells be replaced by a donation from a matching donor. If not then a the cancer patient does not have much time to survive.

Bone marrow has a number of different cells that specialize in different functions of the body. The most important of these is the stem cells, which produce the blood in the body. It is a very important part of the body since white bloods are necessary for the body to fight with pathogens. These which blood cells can be only obtained from a donors bone marrow or from hematopoietic stem cell transfusion. A donor has to match the particular blood type of the individual and also all the other specifications so that there is no rejection by the body. A donation can be made in two ways. On is a nonsurgical method in which drugs are provided which will make the bone marrow to secrete out the Hematopoietic stem cells. These can be obtained by a simple blood donation. The second method is the surgical process were the bone marrow is removed by drilling a little hole in the bone from the hip or the breast bone. Anesthesia is provided while the surgery goes on but later there is a slight pain at the site of operation which goes off soon. There is no effect in anyway on the donor and the bone marrow regenerates.

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Advance Care Directives

A person who is willing to donate her organs has to make sure that her last wish is fulfilled after her death. There is nothing much more satisfactory than knowing that you have given someone the gift of sight or even the gift of life. It is the last good deed that you might do before leaving this world and one that the person who receives your organ will remember for the rest of their lives. But there are a few important paper works and such that you need to take care of when you sign up for organ donation.

The most important documents that you need to take care are living wills, durable power of attorney and an Advanced Care Medical-Directive. Living wills are something like ordinary wills that every person makes while she is alive. These are instructions that include how the things owned by you will be spread among the people you think are worthy. Living wills do the same thing about your body. How it is going to be shared among the different people is decided by your will. It will have all the instructions of your medicare in case you cannot take proper decisions by yourself. You can also decide if your organs will go to a particular individual in specific. Just take it as a power of attorney of your body. There are different versions of these. A durable will or a power of attorney to a particular person will give all the rights of your body to this person in case you are dead. This person can decide on your behalf what organs to be donated and to be donated to whom. It is important that this living will is known to your physician and also to the person on who it is directed towards. Advanced Care Medical-Directive is essentially like the combination of living wills and the durable power of attorney.

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The Science Behind Transplant Rejection

Neutrophil engulfing anthrax bacteria, taken w...

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Sometimes, the immune system attacks the transplanted organs or tissues in the recipient’s body. This is known as transplant rejection. The immune system protects the body from harmful substances. The immune systems protect the body from microorganisms, cancer cells, toxins etc. Antigens are the kind of proteins which are present on the surfaces of the harmful substances. These antigens, if recognized by the body as foreign the immune system attacks them. Even the foreign blood may cause blood transfusion reaction and the foreign tissues may lead to transplant rejection reactions by the immune system. In order to prevent the immune system from attacking the transplanted organ or a tissue in a patient, the tissue typing is carried out before transplantation. Tissue typing involves procedures to ensure that the tissue isas much similar as possible as that of the recipient so that the chances of rejection maybe minimized. Generally no two people except for the identical twins.In order to prevent organ rejection , immunosuppressive drugs are administered. Otherwise most of the transplantations would trigger immune response resulting in the destruction of the transplanted foreign tissue.
Some of the symptoms of organ rejection is discomfort, uneasiness, fever, pain or swelling in the location of transplant etc. The symptoms may vary depending upon the kind of tissue. A biopsy of the tissue is taken and tests are run to find out whether the tissue or organ is rejected. Routine biopsy can be conducted in order to detect the rejection early before the development of symptoms.
Rejections are treated with immunosuppressive drugs; the dosage of these drugs depends on the status of the patient. If the tissue is being rejected high doses of medications are prescribed. The immunosuppressive treatments may not be successful all the time. Rejection can be prevented by ABO typing and HLA typing of the tissues before transplantation to find a close match.

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