How transplants bring hope to those who have none

What is a transplant? 

Organ transplants are medical procedures where damaged or missing organs in a recipient body are replaced with better ones from a donor body. The most common organ transplanted is the kidney, closely followed by the liver and the heart. More than 120,000 organ transplants take place every year around the world. These are hundreds of thousands of lives being changed for the better, and scientists are only working towards increasing that number every day.   

How have transplants given hope to people in the past? 

The earliest likely account of transplantation is in India in the 2nd century BC, where an autografted skin transplantation was used in nose reconstruction, more commonly known as a rhinoplasty. The success or failure of this was not well documented. Gasparo Tagliacozzi, an Italian surgeon, also performed successful skin autografts centuries later. Autografts are transplants where the recipient's own tissue acts as a replacement. However, allografts - tissue from a separate donor body - had yet to be mastered due to risk of rejection.  

The understanding of rejection started to improve in the late 1940s and early 50s, where Peter Medawar identified immune reactions in the transplantation process and suggested the use of immunosuppressive drugs to challenge the issue of organ rejection and transplant failure. Transplants had finally begun to provide hope to millions of patients worldwide in the early 1980s, when transplants had become less risky and more prevalent.  

What is the most important factor to consider in transplants? 

Organ transplantation is one of the great advances in modern medicine. However, the number of people who need transplants is much greater than the number of donors. So, a list of potential recipients must be made based on several factors including tissue type, organ size, medical urgency of the patient’s illness, time already spent on the waiting list, and the geographical distance between the donor and the recipient. Nevertheless, the most important factor to consider is the blood type of both the donor and the recipient based on the ABO blood type system. 

Presence of cell surface antigens (proteins) is the basis for the ABO group system. The antigens on the surface of our red blood cells can be of one of two types - A and B. Some people have both - type AB, and some people don’t have any - type O. The immune system forms antibodies against whichever ABO blood group antigens are not found on the individual’s RBCs. If a foreign antigen is introduced during a transfusion, an immune response is triggered causing agglutination (clumping of blood) and haemolysis (rupture of the RBCs membrane). This is why it is crucial to check which blood type both the donor and the recipient have. 

The growing success of transplants

In recent years, many organ transplants have granted a gift of a new healthy life to many individuals. In 2013, the life of a 22-year-old woman, Samira Kauser, who was suffering from kidney failure, was saved by the kidneys of a 5-week-old baby. The baby’s organs were transplanted into Samira Kauser after the child died of heart failure. Even though a life was lost, at the same time, another life was saved. Samira Kauser said, “They have lost so much more than I can ever comprehend. Their only solace is that someone else has been able to carry on with their life. It is a massive gift.” 

In 2017, Jemima Layzell, who died aged 13 of a brain aneurysm, donated 8 organs to patients in need. She donated 8 organs including her heart, small bowel, pancreas, kidneys, liver, and lungs. She had never heard of organ donation before and found it quite unsettling at the beginning but understood the value and importance it held. Her parents found the decisions hard but felt it was right and knew that her daughter was in favour of donation. Her thoughtful and mature decision led to 8 different people having hope of having an improved quality of life. 

Organ donations like these provide life-saving opportunities to people who are at the end of the line for hope. And the need for organ donors is only growing. Today, at least 100,000 individuals are waiting for a new organ to change their lives into healthier and longer ones.  

What are the hopes of transplants in the future?  

The future for the transplantation procedure is full of exciting endeavours and the possibilities are endless. The availability of donated organs and the procedure itself can only be improved to be efficient and fail-proof lifesavers. Many organisations are currently working towards this goal. The NHS and the UK plan to deliver an increase in the number of successful transplants and both living and deceased donors within 8 years. Some of their aims include establishing a committee of organ donation and transplantation hospitals with transplant centres and maximising the number of organs donated while also searching for potential donors outside of intensive care and hospitals.  

New innovative transplant techniques are being created every day, including vascularized composite allograft of faces or hands. The use of stem cells for organ regeneration is also being advanced daily, replacing the need for more extensive and painful care. For example, the need for insulin therapy can be eliminated by transplanting pancreatic cells from deceased donors into ones with type 1 diabetes. Diseases can be completely cured, instead of mere treatment which only gives patients hope for a limited time.  

Organ transplants can act as a miracle and fulfil the dreams of those who have lost all hope in life. They are the best way to bring hope to those who have none.