Living organ transplants are increasingly successful. You can save a relative's life with your own kidney, part of the liver or bone marrow. Unfortunately, in Poland, compared to other European countries, family transplants from living donors are rarely performed, and it is they that give the patient the best chance of full recovery.
Family transplant,when the donor is a living person, can be performed in three cases - when the patient needs a he althykidney , liver ,bone marroworperipheral blood hematopoietic cells . Removal of tissues or organs is possible from a genetically related person (father, mother, brother) or emotionally (spouse). Organ donation is also possible when the donor and recipient have a relationship of special closeness. This term is extremely capacious. It should be emphasized that each organ removal from a person who has a "close relationship" with the recipient is analyzed in detail by the Ethics Committee of the National Transplant Council and requires court approval. The commission and the court must be sure that the donor was not put under pressure to donate, for example, a kidney. Donation may also not be the subject of a financial transaction.
Family Liver Transplant
The recipients of the liver fragment are most often small children. Adult-adult liver transplantation is extremely difficult and risky. You have to collect as much as 40 percent from the donor. organ. This is a lot, because although the liver can regenerate itself, it must deal with a serious injury immediately after taking a fragment of it. The risk of death with such donations is quite high, as it amounts to 0.5-0.6%. The first successful liver transplant in a child was carried out by prof. Piotr Kaliciński at the Children's Memorial He alth Institute. Liver transplants in children from living donors have been performed in this facility since 1999. Transplantation of a fragment of the liver from a relative is an excellent solution for young children for whom it is very difficult to obtain an organ from a deceased person. Getting a piece of liver from a father or mother for a baby has many advantages. First of all - it allows for a very accurate assessment of the donor's liver, minimizing the risk of transplantation of a not-so-good organ. Second - the removal of the transplant itselftakes place under ideal conditions of elective surgery, incomparable with organ transplantation from the so-called multi-organ pickup, i.e. after human death. Thirdly, the time from collecting the graft to connecting it to the recipient's circulation (the so-called cold ischemia time) does not exceed a few hours, while in the case of a transplant from the deceased, it is usually three times longer.
Kidney Family Transplant
Family kidney transplantation in Poland accounts for only 3 percent. all kidney transplants. For comparison, in Norway it is approx. 45%, and in the USA, the majority of transplanted kidneys are collected from living donors. - There are many arguments for collecting kidneys from living donors - says prof. Wojciech Rowiński, head of the Polish Union of Transplant Medicine. First of all, taking an organ from a living person allows you to precisely plan the time of the operation. The removed kidney is briefly out of the circulatory system and thus - to put it simply - remains fully functional. But there is a more important argument: a kidney taken from a living donor is functioning properly for 15-18 years, while a kidney taken from a deceased person is much shorter, about 9-10 years. It would seem that these facts should convince everyone. But in 2012, 1,094 kidneys from deceased donors were transplanted, and only 51 from living donors. According to Poltransplant, in December 2012 there were 1620 people on the list of kidney transplants qualified, i.e. 475 patients could not be helped due to the lack of an organ for transplantation. Although the number of family kidney transplants is starting to grow, we are far from other European Union countries. Why is this happening? - First of all, the families of patients have insufficient knowledge about this method of treatment - says prof. Rowiński. - Many people do not know that it is possible to function normally with one kidney. For many years, I have been conducting meetings with families and patients in dialysis centers, each with the participation of a nephrologist, surgeon and priest. Listeners often admitted that they did not know about this form of treatment. Some asked for an additional interview and declared their willingness to donate the kidney to a loved one. Prof. Piotr Kaliciński suggested training nurses working in dialysis centers so that they would become coordinators of family transplants. There were also other initiatives promoting family donation of kidneys, such as the "Close to me" campaign, but family donation is still limping. It is not only misinformation that causes too few family kidney transplants. Out of 100 people who want to donate a kidney to a loved one, only 35 meet the requirements. - Each person reporting as a donor must undergo a comprehensive medical examination - explains prof. Rowiński. - If the results confirm infection, for exampleurinary tract, even slight arterial hypertension, single heart rhythm disturbances, nodules in the thyroid gland or breast - donor is disqualified. A kidney can be collected only from a completely he althy person.
Kidney transplant is cheaper than dialysis
- Family donation is safe - assures prof. Rowiński. - The statistical risk of death in kidney retrieval is only 3 per mille, which is very low. Without one kidney, you can function normally, work, play sports, even as sharp as in the case of Przemysław Saleta, who - as we remember - gave the kidney to his daughter. However, it must be honestly admitted that about 15 percent. living donors develop hypertension over time. Occasionally there is a slight proteinuria, but this does not interfere with normal family and social life. These relatively low costs have great benefits - the life of a loved one and freeing them from the torment of frequent dialysis. It's also worth taking a look at the economic benefits of kidney transplants. The care and treatment of a dialysis patient takes approx. 60 thousand. PLN annually and sometimes lasts several years. Transplant is half the cost.
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