Organ Donation

Recently I have heard an interesting podcast about organ donation. In 1954 the first successful living human to human organ transplantation took place. One of the twin brothers was dying and the other one donated him one of his kidneys. According to statistics, about half a million transplantations have been done so far.

Organs are a system of cells and tissues performing certain functions in a body. With age most organs tend to deteriorate. That is why during such operations young organs are preferred. I was very surprised to learn that doctors can transplant almost any organ: a kidney, a heart, a leaver, bones, blood. For example, in 2003 they transplanted a tongue, or in 2005 a woman had a face transplant (she got it from a suicide victim). I was surprised to learn that the leaver is the only organ which can regenerate itself. For example if it is split in halves, and one halve is transplanted, both halves will soon get the former size.

Some organs, such as the kidney, are relatively easy to get, but some others, such as the heart, are very hard to find. If a patient needs a heart transplant, he/she has to wait for about 6-7 years to get it.

Further, in the podcast I heard that there are special organizations, such as OPO (Organ procurement organization) which are responsible for organ recruitment and evaluation. There are also responsible for talking to the family members of the dead person whose organs are going to be transplanted, and get their agreement on paper. Some peoples, such as gypsies treat organ donation negatively. They think that a person’s body will be considered impure if it has an organ missing. In Japan, organ donation rate is very law, too.