15
KIDNEY REPLACEMENT
15 May 2009
by
admin
Filed under
General health
When kidney function totally fails, death will follow unless some means is found of taking over its waste-clearing functions.
Dialysis is a procedure where the person’s blood flows through a machine and the waste products are cleared from the blood and passed through a semi-permeable membrane into fluid on the other side. These “artificial kidneys” are expensive.
Australia has been in the forefront in developing the technique of transplanting kidneys, usually taken from previously healthy people who have died suddenly from accidents.
The body has a natural tendency to “reject” this foreign material and so drugs to suppress the body’s production of antibodies must also be used.
In Australia, there are about 1200 patients who have functioning kidney transplants and a little more than that number still on dialysis.
There has recently been an increase in the number of transplants taken from live donors.
One reason is that tissues can now be typed so accurately that, when deemed suitable, the transplanted kidney has less chance of rejection.
Another is that there is an increasingly longer wait for kidneys taken from the dead.
Have you ever thought of becoming a kidney donor? No one wants to take one of your kidneys now but, if you elect to become a donor, your kidneys could be used to help someone with kidney failure, should you die suddenly from an accident.
All that it entails is that you contact the Kidney Foundation in your State and fill out a form and carry a card in your wallet or purse indicating you have chosen to become a donor.
Why not look up the number in the telephone book and ring now while you think of it rather than putting it off and then forgetting?
*468/71/1*
