Great progress in medicine for kidney transplant patients

For patients with kidney failure, waiting for a suitable kidney transplant will be an arduous and painful journey. Unsuitable kidneys will be considered "foreign" and their bodies will be excreted to kill them. This can happen, even if kidney donations come from relatives or blood relatives.

Now, however, hope is being very clearly lit for patients on the waiting list. They will no longer have to spend time and money every day on hemodialysis machines just to maintain life. A new technique is being evaluated after a trial by the US John Hopkins University that allows patients to receive donations from anyone without being eliminated.

Patients can accept donations from anyone without being eliminated.

The technique is called " desensitisation ", roughly translated as " desensitizing ". It has been used by doctors in many small-scale trials in recent years. However, the report just released for the first time gives us an overview of the effectiveness of the technique.

"Desensitization" works by changing the patient's immune system. They will be filtering their own antibodies out of the blood. After that, doctors provide back another type of antibody that allows the body to maintain self-protection. At the same time, the patient's immune system recreates new antibodies for itself.

Basically, "elimination of susceptibility" restarts the antibody network, making them no longer reject a foreign transplant organ . The exact mechanism of this process has not been explained in detail. However, it has been working on patients for 8 years.

Data were collected from more than 2,000 patients at 22 health facilities. Up to 76.5% of patients underwent "de-sensitive sensitivity" techniques that survived 8 years, although they were implanted with inappropriate kidneys. The number is more positive than just 62.9% of patients on waiting lists for kidney transplantation, or a kidney from a deceased donor is required.

It will take some time for this new method to be widely applied. The reason is that it is using a drug that has not been officially approved. Implementation costs are also a problem, it falls into about $ 30,000. Even the title of the article published in the New England Journal of Medicine also questions whether there is any risk for the transplant.

Even so, look at the list of 100,000 people waiting for kidneys in the US. For every 3 people, one of them has difficulty finding a suitable kidney. Waiting to maintain a high cost of treatment for hemodialysis, it also means a lower survival rate.

On average, every year dialysis costs about $ 70,000. If the waiting time is long, the technique of "reducing sensitivity" is probably the brightest choice. For some patients, it is the only option.

Lawyer Chris Smith lived a healthy life after four years of choosing a "sensitivity reduction" technique for kidney transplantation.

The New York Times cited a successful case of kidney transplantation by Chris Smith , a 56-year-old American lawyer. He chose the "sensitive reduction" technique four years ago to immediately receive a kidney from a living person, although it was not appropriate. This saves time that Smith has to spend every day on an hemodialysis machine, just to maintain life.

"Now you don't need to look for a suitable kidney donor . You just need to find a living person," said Dorry Segev, a researcher at John Hopkins University. Despite this, he still acknowledges that "elimination of susceptibility" is not yet available for widespread dissemination of medical facilities. Other options should still be considered.

In another positive direction, Segev also expressed his optimism. He said the new technique could be developed to transplant other organs, such as the liver and lungs. Right now, it is considered an expensive ray of hope for patients waiting for a kidney transplant.