History of Organ Transplants
The first organ transplants took place in 200 BC. A Chinese physician, Hua-Tuo, is said to have replaced diseased organs with healthy ones. He is also the first physician to use anaesthesia. Both of these are significant. Organs could be replaced and anaesthetics were available.
Not much is recorded about organ transplants until the late 17th and early 18th centuries, when experiments with animal to human blood transfusions, skin grafts, and animal to human transplants were trialled with varying degrees of success.
The year 1940 is significant, as UK researcher Peter Medawar, began to identify the immunological process underlying tissue rejection. This impacted on the success rate of transplants.
In 1954 the first …show more content…
Other drugs followed and transplant success seemed inevitable.
The 1980’s also saw a number of laws & acts passed, regulating organ transplants. This was to try and make this process fair and equitable. In Australia and New Zealand there is a Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ), who monitor, adapt, review and pass guidelines relating to organ transplants.
Transplant rejection may now be decreased due to new research in the USA as reported by Medical News Today. A treatment strategy at the time of transplant may be able to spare patients from lifelong immunosuppressive treatments and their side effects. (Medical News Today, 2014)
The most recent breakthrough has been in Britain where “scientists have for the first time grown a complex, fully functional organ from scratch in a living animal by transplanting cells that were originally created in a laboratory. The advance could in future aid the development of ‘lab-grown’ replacement organs”. (Centre for Regenerative Medicine, …show more content…
An article in American Journal of Kidney Disease found that in the global trafficking of organs “the market is largely price driven, and international rates are higher than local bids. For example, about two-thirds of the 2,500 paid kidney transplants in Pakistan in 2007 were reported to have been for recipient visitors from overseas” and in the USA “a suspect in Brooklyn allegedly acquired kidneys from vulnerable donors for $10,000 each, then sold them at the marked-up price of $160,000”. (Medscape,
The first organ transplants took place in 200 BC. A Chinese physician, Hua-Tuo, is said to have replaced diseased organs with healthy ones. He is also the first physician to use anaesthesia. Both of these are significant. Organs could be replaced and anaesthetics were available.
Not much is recorded about organ transplants until the late 17th and early 18th centuries, when experiments with animal to human blood transfusions, skin grafts, and animal to human transplants were trialled with varying degrees of success.
The year 1940 is significant, as UK researcher Peter Medawar, began to identify the immunological process underlying tissue rejection. This impacted on the success rate of transplants.
In 1954 the first …show more content…
Other drugs followed and transplant success seemed inevitable.
The 1980’s also saw a number of laws & acts passed, regulating organ transplants. This was to try and make this process fair and equitable. In Australia and New Zealand there is a Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ), who monitor, adapt, review and pass guidelines relating to organ transplants.
Transplant rejection may now be decreased due to new research in the USA as reported by Medical News Today. A treatment strategy at the time of transplant may be able to spare patients from lifelong immunosuppressive treatments and their side effects. (Medical News Today, 2014)
The most recent breakthrough has been in Britain where “scientists have for the first time grown a complex, fully functional organ from scratch in a living animal by transplanting cells that were originally created in a laboratory. The advance could in future aid the development of ‘lab-grown’ replacement organs”. (Centre for Regenerative Medicine, …show more content…
An article in American Journal of Kidney Disease found that in the global trafficking of organs “the market is largely price driven, and international rates are higher than local bids. For example, about two-thirds of the 2,500 paid kidney transplants in Pakistan in 2007 were reported to have been for recipient visitors from overseas” and in the USA “a suspect in Brooklyn allegedly acquired kidneys from vulnerable donors for $10,000 each, then sold them at the marked-up price of $160,000”. (Medscape,