Kidney Failure
The best treatment for end-stage renal disease (ESRSD) is a kidney transplant. Patients can get dialysis, it is not a long-term cure. There were 21,167 kidney transplants performed in 2018 in the United States, but there are more than 100,000 on the transplant wait list (Health Resources & Services Administration [HRSA], 2019). Hemo-dialysis is 3-5 hours 3 times a week. With transplant these individuals can have a better quality of life. Patients with stage 4-5 kidney disease can be referred to a transplant center for evaluation.
For some basics on organ donation and transplantation see the video below. Types of kidney transplantThere are a few different types of kidney transplant surgeries. The three main types are: live donor, deceased-donor, & en bloc. Live and deceased-donor refer to the status of the adult donor. En bloc is transplantation of both pediatric kidneys into an adult patient with the use of the donor's aorta and inferior vena cava.
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Live donor transplants have better outcomes compared to deceased-donor transplants. Patients looking to get a kidney transplant are encouraged to ask friends and family members if they would be interested in being a kidney donor. If interested they can contact the transplant clinic, to set up an evaluation. If a patient has a donor that is a good candidate to donate but not a good match the transplant team can put them into another pool of people to create a kidney exchange. This is where person A has a donor that isn't a good match but is a good match for person B, and if the willing donor for person B is a good match for person A they can do a kidney exchange.
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Interesting facts
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References
- Live kidney donation video from Cleveland Clinic, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSog4hblzxU
- Organ donation and kidney transplant information found at https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/
- Health Resources and Services Administration, (2019). Transplant trends. Retrieved from: https://unos.org/data/transplant-trends/