Posted on 08/09/2009 12:18:07 PM PDT by neverdem
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People who need a new kidney may need to look no farther than across the dining room table, according to a new study that shows that spouses are good potential sources for so-called "living-unrelated organ donation."
Due to a worldwide shortage of organs available for transplant from people who have died, "living organ donors" have become a major source of organs for transplantation.
And while a "well-matched" donor organ from a sibling, parent or other close relative has the highest likelihood of surviving in the recipient, there is also evidence that organs from "living-unrelated donors" such as spouses yield similar survival rates to those from well-matched living-related donors.
However, transplant patients may be reluctant to consider an organ from their spouses because the organs may not be well-matched in terms of blood and tissue type. Such poor matching can cause the immune system to reject the organ.
Against this backdrop, Dr. Yu-Ji Lee and colleagues from Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea Lee reviewed the medical records of 185 people who successfully underwent living-unrelated kidney transplantation at their institution. A total of 55 out of the 185 transplant patients received kidneys from their spouses.
They report in the journal Dialysis and Transplantation that kidney transplantation from spousal donors "has comparable outcomes to those of other living-unrelated donors, and shortens the time spent on the waiting list."
While the incidence of acute rejection of the kidney in the first year after transplantation was more frequent in people who received a kidney from a spouse, the survival rates at 1 and 5 years for spousal and other living-unrelated kidneys were both high and were not significantly different.
"Spouses are important potential donors for living-unrelated kidney transplantation," the investigators note in their report, and "should..."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
A lot of wives have already taken their husband’s most valuable “organs”.
Why not? Mrs. Chandler and I already share a brain.
We have no shortage of kidneys. We have a lack of kidneys made available for transplant because thats what the government wants. The government doesn’t want to have everyone on the list getting a kidney because they’d run out of money for other things, important stuf like abortion and sex-change operations.
My wife told me I could agree with you. But she is holding out on her organs until I mow the lawn.
This is despicable at its core.
Who, besides leftists and zero (the uber-leftist) thinks like this about their loved ones??
Under the Obamacare there wil be plenty of oldr citizens dying , they can give their kidnys. Unfortunately under the Obama plan they wont pay for the operation.
Why? The actual study involved kidneys. The trade-off was a wasted donation due to rejection versus the time on one of the types of peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis waiting for a matched donor.
Bet she got the ‘better half’..
:)
Well, don’t give my husband any ideas! After 36 years of wedded bliss, he might like to take some of my vital organs. LOL Actually at age 58 I still have 20-20 vision, they should put my eyes into someone who would love to see. Last night at the observatory the guide pointed to the sky, there was the Hubble Telescope passing right over us. We could see it with the naked eye, and I think I was the only adult there without glasses. My aunt had 20 20 vision at age 91, I guess it is in the DNA
They prefer to take the kidneys, for transplant, from young adult donor.
Well, look at it the other way around. It would be heartening to realize that if my wife suffers kidney failure, I could choose to donate a kidney and there would be an excellent chance it would work. If I suffered kidney failure instead, it would be up to my wife to choose whether or not to volunteer one of her kidneys — I would not pressure her.
They could’ve given me the money and I would have told them the same thing. Just yesterday I celebrated my second “kidneyversary” with my wife who gave me one on Aug, 8th 2007. What makes it even cooler is that we matched 6 of 6 antigens on the tissue type test (we really were made for each other).
The transplant also occured 5 days after our 11th wedding anniversary. Needless to say, I have had a great week!
Do you REALLY have to ask??? Do you honestly want your spouse to know that you only think of him/her as merely a bag of spare parts if you should need them?? Or your kids?? Do want to see if you can catch them licking their lips wondering how much they can sell your kidneys for?? Or a lung?
People who love each other don't wait to be asked if someone needs an organ to stay alive. But, the NYT, irresponsible leftist paper that it is, would have us think otherwise. THAT'S what I find so despicable.
Please see my post #14.
Silly.
This research, if valid, means that something biological happens in a marriage (shared micro-organisms and/or sexual intercourse resulting in a similar set of antibodies) that makes it more likely for a kidney to be transplantable between the parties than it would between strangers. Otherwise, a spouse and his or her doctor might not even think about it, believing that there has to be a close genetic fit.
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I hate liver.
OK, picky point granted. Could complain about the ethics of the Korean experiment, but it would be worth trying to duplicate this in animals in independent experiments (among animals that mate for life then live closely together). DNA doesn’t change, but shared antibodies might have a say in the compatibility process.
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