A healthy kidney from a donor is placed inside the recipient's body during a kidney transplant. The new kidney does the same work used to do by the two kidneys of the recipient.
In this blog post, we are going to discuss certain information related to kidney transplant. Take a look!
The kidneys are organs whose proper functioning is essential for the maintenance of life. Most people are born with two kidneys on either side of the spine, behind the abdominal organs and under the rib cage. The kidneys perform several functions that are essential to maintaining the well-being of the body. These functions include blood filtration, stimulation of red blood cell production by releasing hormone erythropoietin, regulation of blood pressure by releasing several hormones, etc.
When the kidneys stop functioning, kidney failure occurs. If this kidney failure persists (chronically), it results in terminal kidney disease, with the accumulation of toxic waste in the body. In this case, dialysis or transplantation is required.
Treatments for end-stage renal failures are hemodialysis, a mechanical process of cleaning blood from waste; peritoneal dialysis, in which waste is removed by passing chemical solutions into the abdominal cavity. However, although none of these treatments can cure end-stage renal disease, a kidney transplant is the only option available at this case because the transplanted kidney can replace the failed kidneys and provide the proper stimulation of body functions. However, this also implies a permanent dependence on the drugs to keep the new kidney healthy. Some of these medications can also have some serious side effects.
Regardless of the type of donor ‘living donor’ or ‘deceased donor’, special blood tests are needed to determine the type of blood and tissue present. These test results thus help to match the donor’s kidney with the recipient.
Some kidney patients are considering a transplant after the start of dialysis; others consider it before starting dialysis. In some circumstances, dialysis patients who also have serious medical conditions such as cancer or active infections may not be suitable candidates for a kidney transplant.
The transplant is performed under general anesthesia. The operation usually takes 2-4 hours. This type of operation is a heterotopic transplant, which means that the kidney is placed at a different location than the existing kidneys. (The liver and heart transplants are orthotropic transplants, in which the diseased organ is removed and the transplanted organ is placed in the same place). The kidney transplant is placed in the anterior (inferior) part of the abdomen, in the pelvis.
Original kidneys are not usually removed unless they cause serious problems such as uncontrollable high blood pressure, frequent kidney infections or severe hypertrophy. The artery carrying the blood in the kidney and vein carrying the blood is surgically connected to the artery and vein already present in the pelvis of the recipient. The ureter, or tube, that carries urine from the kidney is connected to the bladder. The recovery at the hospital usually takes 3 to 7 days.
We hope this blog post would help you in knowing about the kidney transplant surgery.
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