Organ transplant ... The future of human life?
When you hear about organ transplants, you may think that it is something that started not long ago. But the truth is that the origin of this medical procedure dates, according to records, for more than 2,000 years. Of course, at that time the process was not as complex as it is today, because we did not know much about the subject in question and we did not have a technology that would allow us to do all the research we can do now.
The first record is found in a medical treatise that talks about a surgeon named Sushruta. It describes methods that the doctor used to reconstruct an amputated nose using tissue from the forehead of the person. There are also records of a doctor who transplanted damaged organs in the middle of the 11th century. Due to the lack of information and state-of-the-art technology to carry out investigations, there was no knowledge of the incompatibility or rejection of the organs, the blood types or the measures that had to be taken before and after the operation. The consequences that these transplants could have on the people who were given such procedures could lead to their death.
Little by little, due to the advance of technology, experiments and people committed to the topic, such as: Gaspare Tagliacozzi, John Hunter, Louis Pasteur, Karl Landsteiner, new transcendental knowledge was discovered that would significantly boost the evolution of organ transplantation . It was not until 1905 that Eduard Zirm managed to perform a successful human procedure, transplanting the cornea of an eleven-year-old boy to a worker who had been burned with lime. Being older than this and marking a myth in the history of the transplant, the one that was made by Yu Yu Voronoy, who transplanted a kidney from a man to a woman, although she died days later without doubt, marked a before and after in this story.
Today organ transplantation is a legal procedure that has the support of different countries and global organizations. With a rapid evolution, due to the rapid boom with which technology develops, it has made the impossible possible. Even saving many people from death.
Spain is one of the pioneer countries in the field of transplantation. According to the ABC portal "Fourteen daily transplants, 2,183 donors and the" best national health system in the world "led Spain to overcome its own brand in 2017 and stay one year longer (and already 26) as a world leader in transplants. During the year that has just ended, our country reached the great record of 46.9 donors per million population, more than double that in the EU (21.5) and well above countries like the USA. (30.8), France (28.7) and the United Kingdom (21.6) ".
Some old statistics but that to this day maintains the same situation:
According to the same portal"In the last three years the number of donors has increased by 30 percent, from 1.851 donors in 2016 to 2.183 in 2017. Practically six people have donated organs every day. This greater number of donors has allowed us to perform 5.259 transplants, exceeding for the first time the figure of 5.000 transplants". Having a positive impact on a part of society, when donating your own organs does not seem like a crazy idea, be it a donation in life or after dying. However, this amount willing to donate are not enough for the great demand for organ transplantation that is needed today. Taking with it that an approximate of 20 people die every day waiting for a transplant.
Faced with these situations, the medical and scientific community, not feeling pleased with the progress made, continues to look for ways to expand and improve the procedures or techniques used today, investigating how to make the best use of donated organs. A case that highlights this action, is the progress that doctors had to find the way to transplant organs infected with Hepatitis C. The case is recorded in the case where doctors have already transplanted organs with this infection to patients, treating them with medicines after the transplant to eliminate the virus.
According to a website, "In Toronto, Canada, a group of doctors announced preliminary results of a test using a different technique, which involved ten people who received lung transplants from donors with hepatitis C. The infected lungs were placed in a sterile container for six hours and treated with medicines to reduce the level of the virus. Only then was the transplant performed. "
Although they could not completely eliminate hepatitis C from the lungs, as expected, they managed to at least reduce it by 85%. In the end, the patients who received these organs were later diagnosed with hepatitis C and treated for 12 weeks with a combination of drugs, known by the generic name of Epclusa, to cure it. After three weeks the patients no longer had Hepatitis C.
Despite all these efforts, as the AFP Cypel published, "Patients waiting for a lung transplant have a 20% chance of dying waiting for an organ.". Perhaps as we move forward with the passing of the years, the methods will be improved, new medicines will be created, the sequels such as accelerated rejection, acute rejection, chronic rejection, infections, (consequences stemming from a transplant) will be treated and subsequently eliminated. society are more open and willing to collaborate, and so people who need an organ or part of it, have a second chance.
How do you think organ transplantation will be in the future? Will science come so far as to create mechanical organs from one, without the need to donate it completely? Surely this would be an idea that could save many lives and certainly evolve the world and how we see things, be a vile failure or stay for a science fiction story.
Honestly ... We'll have to wait, but here it also matters what you think. And you can do it by commenting below. Let us know what you think about this topic.
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