Organ Transplant

1. By: Andrew Shaffer Organ Transplant

2. Organ Transplant Overview • An organ transplant is the moving of an organ from one body to another, or from a donor site on the patient’s own body, for the purpose of replacing a recipient’s damaged or absent organ. • The up-and-coming field of regenerative medicine is playing a key role in the advancement of organ transplant by allowing patient’s organs to be re-grown from that patient’s own cells. • Transplantable Organs : heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver, intestines, thymus, and skin. Transplantable Tissues: bones, tendons, cornea, heart valves, and veins. • Types of Organ Transplants: autograft, allograft, isograft, xenograft, split transplantations, and domino transplants.

3. Organ Transplant Overview Cont’d • Transplantation medicine is one of the most complex and challenging in the medical field. • Key Areas : transplant rejection – where a body has an immune response to the transplanted organ, possibly leading to transplant failure, and thus, the removal of the transplanted organ. • Sometimes, the use of serotyping (determining the most appropriate donor-recipient match), and the use of immunosuppressant drugs, can reduce the possibility of transplant rejection. • BREIF HISTORY OF ORGAN TRANSPLANTS: • The first successful human corneal transplant - a keratoplastic operation – was preformed by Eduard Zirm in Olomouc, Czech Republic – 1905. • Pioneering work in the surgical technique of transplantation was made in the early 1900s by the French surgeon Alexis Carrel, with Charles Guthrie, with the transplantation of arteries or veins.

4. How Organ Transplantation works • When a person dies, or is declared brain dead, it is the hospital’s responsibility to determine if that patient is an organ donor. • If the patient is, their organs will be kept viable through a ventilator. • Most of the individuals whose organs are donated will have died from an external trauma or head injury. • Those with more serious illnesses such as cancer do not make respectable donors. • Many factors are taken into consideration when determining what organs are viable including: how long the person has been deceased, as well as the individual’s physical health before he or she dies.

5. STATS Over the years, more and more people have become aware of the benefits of organ donation. According to the OTPN (Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network), there are more than 99,200 individuals awaiting transplants in the US. However, between January 08’ and February ’08, about 4,400 transplants have taken place with organs harvested from 2,200 donors. More than 100,000 men, women and children currently need life-saving organ transplants. Every 10 minutes another name is added to the national organ transplant waiting list. An average of 18 people die each day from the lack of available organs for transplant. In 2009, there were 8,021 deceased organ donors and 6,610 living organ donors resulting in 28,465 organ transplants. Last year, more than 42,000 grafts were made available for transplant by eye banks within the United States. According to research, 98% of all adults have heard about organ donation and 86% have heard of tissue donation. 90% of Americans say they support donation, but only 30% know the essential steps to take to be a donor.

6. Pro’s of Organ Transplantation. • The most obvious and the most important positive aspect of organ donation is that it saves lives. It has been reported that organs from one person’s body can help save as many as 50 individuals. • Donating an organ can also help a grieving family, give a dying person a new lease on life, and can give a dying person a better quality of life. • Sometimes organ transplantation can be more cost effective than prolonged medical care and donating also feeds into a person’s social responsibility.

7. Ethical Dilemmas Surrounding Transplantation : Organ Shortage • Not everyone who needs an organ transplant receives one, and in reality, the scales tip in the opposite direction. • When there is an organ shortage, the concept of distributive justice-how to fairly divide resources- comes into play. • One distributive justice criteria is equal access, where organs are donated to patients aimed to limit bias and unfair distribution. • Some ethicists argue that individual worth is important to consider during the distribution process. They argue that distribution is biased against worthy individuals when individual worthiness factors are not included.

8. Ethical Dilemma Surrounding Transplantation: Organ Shortage • The buying and selling of organs is a major ethical issue associated with organ transplantation. • The most common arguments against this practice are: • 1. Donor Safety • 2.Unfair appeal of financial incentives to the economically disadvantaged • 3. Turning the body into a money-making tool • 4. Wealthy people would be able to access the organs more easily

9. Ethical Dilemma Surrounding Transplantation: Organ Shortage • With the organ shortage discrepancy becoming more of an issue, researchers have began to discover alternative sources for organs. • Some examples are animal organs – although the opposition of using these organs concerns the possibility of transferring animal bacteria and viruses to humans. • Artificial organs – another possibility, although some question the cost and effectiveness. People who receive artificial transplants might need subsequent transplants down the road if the device has a problem. • Stem Cells – Stem cells are cells that can differentiate into many different types of cells, and scientists hope that one day these cells can develop into organs. The source is the primary ethical issue behind the use of stem cells, because in the end the embryo is destroyed. • Aborted fetuses – Debates address whether it is morally appropriate to use organs from a fetus late in a pregnancy for transplantation to save another infant.

10. Ethical Dilemmas Surrounding Transplantation: Maximum Benefit • A second type of distribution criteria is maximum benefit – maximizing the number of successful transplants. • Three primary arguments oppose this criteria: • 1 – predicating medical success is difficult because a successful outcome can vary. Is success the number of years a patient lives after a transplant? Or is success the number of years a transplanted organ functions? • 2- Distributing organs in this way could leave the door open for bias, lying, favoritism, and other unfair practices. • 3- Some ethicists argue against using age and maximizing life years as criteria to receive an organ because it devalues the remaining life of an older person awaiting a transplant. • Regardless of how old someone is, if that person does not receive a transplant, they will still be losing the rest of his or her life, which is valuable to everyone, regardless of age.

11. Third-Person Prospective • Organ Transplantation, while an ethical issue, is very important in saving lives. Without organ transplants, the death rate would be higher, causing problems for not just the medical field, but for the population as a whole as well. Yes, it is unfair that the wealthier often are ahead of the less well-off on the transplant list, but in the end not everyone can receive a transplant. Hopefully in the future, the medical field will make advances that allow the less fortunate to have a greater chance of receiving a transplant.

13. WORKS CITED • http://atheism.about.com/library/weekly/aa052302a.htm • http://dying.lovetoknow.com/Benefits_of_Organ_Donating • http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/adam/images/en/pancreas-and-kidneys-picture.jpg • http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/organ-transplant-statistic1.gif • http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/organ-transplant-statistic2.gif • http://www.ahc.umn.edu/img/assets/26104/Organ_Transplantation.pdf • http://www.donatelife.net/UnderstandingDonation/Statistics.php