Bioengineering is a relatively new concept. In ancient times, people depended more on superstition than facts. As new medical technologies were introduced, doctors took a different approach to organ treatments. One of the new methods is artificial kidney treatment (dialysis) and transplantation.
Through the kidney's long medical history with medicine, doctors have gained considerable experience in how to treat kidney failures and transplantation. Now, the artificial kidney can be used by over 300,000 end-stage renal disease patients everyday, worldwide.
Artificial kidney has helped treat fatal kidney failures on many patients and it is continuing to upgrade with new bioengineering innovations. However, artificial kidney, or dialyzers face certain obstacles as the technology is expensive and complex. Dialyzers are support systems which can not take on the task of a human kidney permanently without great cost. However, dialyzer treatments in compliant with kidney transplantation have been very successful in returning a patient to healthy conditions.
Fatal kidney malfunctions, while uncommon, occur mostly in the people of young
age. The kidney removes waste material from the body, and when this is not achieved
properly, the patient develops a kidney failure. In cases where conventional methods can
not treat the malfunction, the patient must go through a series of artificial kidney
treatments. The artificial kidney, or dialyzer, is a life suppor system designed to remove
waste products from the patients body.
A patient receives artificial kidney
treatment for about 12 hours each day, two to three times a week, which will remove all of
the features of kidney failure in one to two months. Then, the patient awaits kidney
transplant from a compatible donor. This treatment causes major financial problems to many
countries because dialysis is expensive to buy and maintain. Dialyzer uses pure water to
remove impurities and waste products within patient's blood streams. Tthe water used in
dialysis must be exceptionally pure, else the impurities in the pure water will get into
patients blood streams, causing greater problems.
A patient completing the artificial kidney treatment, may receive a kidney from a live donor or a dead one. The biggest issue in transplantation is compatibility between the donor and the receiver. Even with many years of experience in kidney transplantation, the issue of compatibility and rejection of the organ has not been completely resolved. Since the availability of immunosupressive drugs, the threat of rejection has minimized somewhat, but with great risk to the patient. In most cases, the donor is a close relative of the patient as there is greater compatibility and a higher probability of successful Transplant. If a patient were to receive a graft from a dead cadaver, the kidney will need special treatment as it may not start to function immediately after the transplantation.
Use of immunosupressive drugs was introduced in the 1960's and have improved greatly
over the years. After transplantation, the patient is put into intensive care in the most
isolated room and given immunosupressive drugs. The drug lowers the possibility of
rejection by decreasing the immune responses of the patient. This will allow easier
integration of the graft in the patient's body. However, lower immune responses means that
the patient will be extremely vulnerable to bacteria and virusses, which greatly increases
the risk of infection and other diseases leading to a complete rejection of the graft,
possibly causing permanent harm to the patient. If a complete rejection was to occur,
there will be no choice but to remove the graft from the patient. However, it is possible
for patient to receive a second graft and even a third one. Once the graft is removed, the
patient can be returned to artificial kidney treatments to await a new donor.
The patient who undergoes a successful transplant can return to normal existance. Although a light work is preferable, there are no restrictions except that the patient will need to be on continuous survelience with the outpatient department and continue to take their drugs. Women can bear children and men can become fathers after transplant. Unfortunately, the course of event may not always be so happy. However, the mortality rate from kidney failure and transplant has gone down significantly. Patients have been known to survive more than 25 years after a transplant from a well-matched sibling. Patients receiving organ from an unrelated cadaver donor have also been known to survive more than 20 years. Now, many patients with kidney failure stands a reasonable chance at a normal life with artificial kidney treatments and a well-matched transplant.
There is no substitute for artificial kidney treatment and its usefulness as a short term treatment is highly recommended. Also, it has been proven very successful when used in support for a kidney transplant. While the technology still suffers from funding, reusing the diayzers should alleviate the problem to some extent. With more development of better materials and cheaper technology, the artificial kidney will soon be available in all countries.
