Can adults really give hearts to children?

Can adults donate hearts to children? In addition, is that heart still a patient with advanced cancer? Is it possible?

Can cancer people donate organs?

According to Oncolink - the first website in the world to provide information about cancer and organs to donate, there are 2 types: from the living, and from the deceased. A living person may donate kidneys, parts of the liver, pancreas, lungs, or intestines - organs that do not affect their living function. In the case of a deceased donor, any part of the body can be used, as long as it is appropriate.

For cancer patients, it is basically not suitable to be a living organ donor. However, doctors will also have to evaluate each case: whether the donated organ is affected by the treatment process, whether the donor's health is enough to survive the donation . The evaluation process will be even stricter in the case of cancer patients who have died : about the type of cancer, the part that has spread, and the part likely to have spread.

Basically, cancer patients are unsuitable for being live organ donors.

After all, it can be seen that organs of cancer patients can still be used in many cases.

Can adults donate hearts to children?

This is actually a relatively complex question. According to Hari R. Mallidi, a doctor at Brigham Hospital (USA), the story lies in the issue of size . In most cases, a child's body is too small to accept organ donation from adults and minors. Only when the child grows earlier than the age and the organ size is small, a transplant is likely.

The story of organ donation also has to follow a lot of strict standards. According to Jeffrey A. Sadowsky, an advisor to the non-profit health system Orlando Health of the United States, before transplantation, the team of doctors must consider many similar factors : blood type, transplant list order, the patient's immune system, and especially whether the child is an adult or a donor.

In particular, the story of adults or children is the most difficult. Surgery for one child will have a higher success rate if the organ transplant is from another child. This makes the viable option confined, since the majority of organ donations are from adults.

Adults with heart or lung donation to children are very rare.

Like Mallidi, Dr. Sadowsky said there are cases where an adult's organ can be transplanted for a child, such as a kidney or part of the liver (about 20% because the liver can regenerate and continue to grow over time). .The heart and lungs, the size match is extremely necessary, so organ transplants involving these two organs are very rare between adults and children. That's not to mention the gender issue - men will usually have a bigger heart, so it's even harder to match .

But rarity does not mean none, higher risk does not mean impossible. Around the world, there have been a few cases of pediatric patients receiving an adult donor heart. Even in Vietnam, it has been successful, as the case of Nguyen Thanh Dat (10 years old) received the heart of a 34-year-old liver tumor patient in 2017, or a young girl named Ha Ngoc Chi (also 10 years old). Heart transplant of a 37 year old man.

• What to note when you want to donate?
• Registration of organ donation like how?