Organ Transplantation

Organ Transplantation

Thesis Statement

The problem of the donor and the problem with the recipient limits the success operation of organ transplant.

Introduction

Organ transplantation refers to the removing the donor's organ or tissue to the patient's body in order to replace the failing ones due to different diseases or other factors. The earliest organ transplant was done in 1954 in United States about the transplant of kidney between identical twins.

Organ transplantation has been recognized as one of the biggest medical advances of the century as it provides a way of donating organs from deceased or living individuals to the patients with terminal failure of vital organs. Advances in medical technology and science have made transfer of organs and tissue a very important issue. The increasing incidence of vital organ failure and the inadequate supply of organs, especially from cadavers, has created a wide gap between organ supply and organ demand, which has resulted in very long waiting times to receive an organ as well as an increasing number of deaths while waiting(Childress, 2001). These events have raised many ethical, moral and societal issues regarding supply and organ allocation, xenotransplantation, the risks and benefits of organ donation from living donors, the issues dealing with organ donation from the deceased, and the duties and responsibilities of the medical profession and society to help those who need help.

Discussion

The most common transplant done was kidney transplant, but due to the advanced technologies introduced these days, other organs such as heart, kidney, liver, lungs, pancreases and some parts of small intestines.

Even though organ transplant seem to be one of the simplest way to avoid all the inconvenience due to organ failing, there are many limitations and more of the issues arise since the first operation done in 1954. Since the first organ transplant done in 1954, the scientists worked so hard to improve the success rate of organ transplant operation. The main threats that exist in every organ transplant surgery are mainly about how easy it is to preserve the organ and the immune rejection that occur in our body(Bernard, 1992).

The organ transplant which has highest success rate is the kidney transplant, which has an 80% to 90% success rate. The least success rate among all transplant operations is the liver transplant, which has only a success rate of 45%.

The limitations

There limitations which hinder the success operation of organ transplant can be dividing into 2 category, the problem of the donor and the problem with the recipient.

The hospital will refuse donors from donating their organ which have positive result to the presence of HIV, active cancer or active infection(Snyder, 2009). But there are still exceptions, patient who has hepatitis C and hepatitis B can donate to patient with hepatitis C and B respectively. In the case for the organ receivers, the main problem occur is about the tissue rejection caused by the immune system. Our immune system plays the role of security in our body which has the ability to recognize the difference between our own ...