Health and Tech: Life after organ transplant
In terms of leading an unfettered lifestyle, organ transplants do not provide carte-blanche to recipients, as donated organs come with an expiration date
Published Date – 12:45 AM Thu – 20 Apr 23
In terms of leading an unfettered lifestyle, organ transplants do not provide carte-blanche to recipients, as donated organs come with an expiration date
Organ transplantation is a transformative experience, as patients who undergo this complex surgery are among the lucky few India To obtain financial resources and access to a donor organ (can be deceased or living related). After an organ transplant, however, recipients are quite unprepared to grapple with questions of ethics, as they face a sudden burden and perhaps even a sense of responsibility to protect a donor organ that has recently killed another human being. enabled to live. In terms of leading an unfettered lifestyle, organ transplants do not provide carte-blanche to recipients, as donated organs come with an expiration date.
It cannot be denied that organ transplantation provides individuals who till then had only a few months left on this planet, with a precious few more years to live. There is also the fact that the quality of life, post-transplantation, as experienced by such patients, is veiled and discussed the least. Due to the high focus on organ donation by state governments, voluntary organizations and health care providers, there is a lot of awareness about organ donation and taking the pledge. In contrast, hardly anyone, including transplant specialists, talks about the inherent risks post-transplant.
post transplant surgery
As soon as the patient receives the donor organ, his body’s immune response starts treating it as a ‘foreign’ object and reacts accordingly. Whether the patient has received a heart, kidney, liver or lungs, the body does not accept the donor organ and treats it as an outsider. As a result, the body’s immunity goes into an overdrive, which if left unchecked leads to organ rejection.
Immediately following transplant surgery, the recipient is placed on a heavy and potent combination dose of immunosuppressant drugs that include steroids, calcineurin inhibitors, and antimetabolites. While organ recipients are administered with this potent cocktail of drugs (throughout their lifetime) to suppress immunity so that the body will accept the donor organs, these drugs can cause diabetes, high blood pressure, heart and kidney diseases, and serious infections. For example, it also raises the risk of causing secondary diseases. A type of tree.
As a result of these complications, transplant specialists cannot guarantee that the expensive drug regimen, which has to be taken at least once or twice a day, will be effective and work properly in the long term and prevent the patient’s ailments. Will protect body’s own immunity.
There are several well-documented studies that have indicated that heart disease is the most common cause of death among patients who have received an organ donor. The side effects of such drugs that lower the body’s resistance include cancer, a major reason why transplant patients have a shorter life expectancy than a normal healthy person.
not only in the number of organ transplants Telangana But as the country grows, there is also a definite increase in demand for a new class of highly effective drugs that can strike a balance between suppressing the body’s immunity, preventing secondary infections, and adding some quality of life to organ-recipients. .