By Daniel Yan
Having a kidney transplant is often the last ditch effort to
save the life of an individual whose kidneys have failed and no longer process
waste products in the body. Statistics
reveal that a total of about 9,000 kidney transplants occur every year from
cadavers and about 3,000 transplants occur from living related donors. Living unrelated donors account for 9,000
transplants per year. Sadly, there are more
than 56,000 individuals waiting for kidney transplants at any given period of
time.
The first successful kidney transplant was done in 1954 in
both Boston and Paris. These were kidney
transplants done between identical twins which don't have problems with
rejection. The biggest problem was
tissue typing--finding a suitable match for the recipient and making sure that
rejection is kept to a minimum. This is
why many donors are relatives who are a good match or living donors who are a
good tissue typing match for the recipient.
Living donors are carefully evaluated to make sure they are
medically and psychologically able to donate their kidneys for kidney
transplant. The living donor transplant
used to be done via an open procedure but it is now increasingly done through
laparoscopic surgery, which is easier to tolerate. Kidneys from living donors
have a better success rate than do kidneys from deceased donors.
Kidney transplant from deceased donors can come from those
whose hearts are still beating but are brain dead, as well as from
non-heartbeating donors. The kidney can
survive on ice for several hours before transplant so that technically, a
person can be deceased and still donate their kidneys. The kidney is then kept in a cold solution
prior to donation. The best organs for
kidney transplant come from the brain dead donors.
Doctors judge compatibility for kidney transplant by
assessing the ABO blood type of the donor and recipient as well as the HLA and
minor antigens. If many of these match,
the risk of rejecting the transplant and further dialysis is much decreased. In addition, immunosuppressants are used to
keep the immune system in check. In the
US, only about 17% of transplants have no HLA mismatch whatsoever. This
improves the success rate remarkably.
Because kidneys can be kept cold for several hours, the
kidney transplant is usually done in a different place from where it was
harvested. In addition, the kidney is also placed in a different place from
where a normal kidney would be. The most
common spot for kidney transplant is the iliac fossa in the lower abdomen. The blood supply must come from somewhere
other than the renal artery.
In situations where the kidney transplant recipient is a
diabetic, the pancreas is also sometimes transplanted at the same time in order
to turn around some of the diabetes the individual has. This almost always requires a deceased donor
although partial pancreas transplants in living donors has been done. The patient can also receive a kidney
transplant first, followed by a pancreas transplant at a later date.
Kidney Transplant
[http://www.kidneydirect.com/kidneytransplant.html] brings you the latest news
on kidney transplants. Kidney transplants are ever increasing each day and we
want to bring you the most up-to-date information online. Also check out our latest
information page at http://www.kidneydirect.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/