“The long-term risks of transplant surgery including an elevated risk of cancer, particularly skin cancer. An estimated 6–8% of transplant patients develop cancer over their lifetime as compared to less than 1% in the general population”
"Transplantation"
Section 12, Chapter 149 in the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Edited by Mark H. Beers, MD, and Robert Berkow.
Transplants surgery have become much more common as a result of technological breakthroughs which have allowed scientists and doctors to understand the ways in which tissues and organs can be kept alive long enough to transplant them into another person’s body. Before transplants could help people overcome the problems of a failing organ, scientists needed a better understanding of human immune system. In the 1940’s when British scientist Peter Medewar (1915-1987) began research into immune reactions within the body. Medewar discovered what is now known as common knowledge: that the immune system fights any foreign object within the body and that was why the transplanted organs were being rejected by the host body .The immune system has as its basic a method of recognising cells. It can tell the difference between the cells of a person’s body and all other cells. The immune system will reject and destroy transplanted organs because it recognises them as different. This meant that not only did scientists and doctors have to develop the surgical techniques for successful transplants, but they also had to find ways of preventing rejection of the new organ such as using special drugs. Throughout the fifty years of last century scientists were gaining in knowledge and understanding of how the organs of the body worked. They also learning to recognise some of the signals used by the immune system. In United Kingdom Government helped these scientists economically and supported this new surgical technique to occur.
Nowadays, there are more than twenty one different kinds of organ transplants, from kidney transplants to heart transplants as well as countless numbers of tissue transplants, such as bone marrow transplants, face transplant and blood transfusions. Therefore scientific advances which have been made to make successful transplants possible with the massive support from the government economically.
British Government has spent millions on organ transplant to occur. The innovations and restructuring measures announced at the past years and were carried out with the aim of improving and saving lives of people in UK.
There are many factors contributing to the progress of medicine. I believe that the influences of the Government, of wars of technology and of communication are four of the most important factors in the Modern World. Without these then scientists would not have had the money, the great ability to do the things they have done, nor would they have been able to share their ideas with others so that these ideas could take affect in improving lives and standard of living.
I think that without the intervention and support of Government, there would have been little progress in transplant surgery because Governments have been very interested in making their people healthy, therefore Government helped scientist economically and supported this new surgical technique to occur.
(The first successful kidney transplant in the world was performed at the Brigham, in 1954. For this work, Dr Murray was awarded the Noble Prize.
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Advantages and Disadvantages of transplant surgery
I think the money that has been spent on transplants is worth it because transplants are one of the most amazing achievements of modern medicine, Transplant surgery have saved or improved the life of more than a million people in the world.
However, there are ethical issues about transplant surgery which we should be aware of the consequences, doctors and other trained professionals are on a daily basis, decide who should receive a transplant operation and the organ necessary and who should not, basically, who should die and who should not. The decisions, when made, often seem incredibly unfair because patients who are less ill than others often get transplants, whilst others die waiting for a donor to appear.
