ORGAN TRANSPLANTS

Organ Transplants

Organ Transplants

Introduction

Organ transplant, defined as the transfer of a living tissue or organ to an injured or ill person to restore health or reduce disability, first started in the 1930s. This concept gave new hope and new life to ailing patients when several kidney transplants were successfully performed in the 1950s. Following that, doctors discovered how to transplant other organs successfully, thus improving quality of life, and reducing morbidity and mortality. Today, most organ transplants are relatively safe procedures, no longer considered as experiments, but considered as treatment options for thousands of patients with medical indications, such as those suffering from renal failure, heart disease, respiratory disease, and cirrhosis of the liver.

Discussion

A surgical procedure (operation) is performed in a specialized center which involves removing the organ or part thereof, belonging to an individual considered healthy, or in a state of preservation of organs, as occurs in neurological death. These organs or tissues will be placed in another person who has his life functions and bounded by a functional failure of an organ, called medically terminal condition. The transplant will help you recover to a large degree their health.

The issue of organ transplantation is one of the most important in recent times. In the field of surgery, the Indians are acknowledged to be the most skilled of all antiquity. It is believed that it was the first to perform a transplant skin and plastic surgery of the nose. One of the most significant advances of modern surgery is the transplantation of vital organs from one person to another.

There are difficult and expensive options for those suffering from terminal damage of an organ, and the risk of eventually dying is high. When the kidney stops functioning patients have a provisional therapy known as dialysis, which means the patient will go to the hospital at least three times a week and be connected to a machine (that cleans your blood) 3 to 4 hours per session. This procedure allowed prolonging his life but not improving their quality of life. Really only improves your health, until the arrival of the transplant. Before this happens, the patient's health is deteriorating steadily (Linden, 2009).

Current Status of Organ Transplant

Advances in medicine now make it possible to replace several injured organs. Great advances have been made to solve the problems of liver transplantation, pancreas and heart. In Spain, in 1965 the first kidney transplants in 1984 were initiated in heart and liver. Thus, for more than twenty years, the number of people living thanks to vital organ transplantation is increasing (Ota, 2004).

Types of Organ Transplant

Organs can be transplanted from a living donor or deceased donor. Examples of organs transplanted from living donors are livers and kidneys. This is possible because liver is capable of regeneration, and human beings are born with 2 kidneys and have 1 “extra” kidney to donate. There have also been reports of lung transplantation from a living donor, but this is still very rare. For these types of procedures, a patient in need ...