Transplant Question

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MINI Cooper

MINI Cooper

Joined
Oct 17, 2008
Messages
818
Ok, I had a weird thought the other night.

Why is it nearly every other organ in the human body can be replaced
with a transplant from another person, but NOT the intestines or colon???

Is it because it's just too complex, like the brain?

I WANT A TRANSPLANT!!!!!! MAKE IT HAPPEN, SCIENCE!
:ybatty:
 
That's an interesting question. I had never really thought about that before. Your question made me curious, so I looked and found an article talking about it.

http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic2845.htm

the mortality rate was 66% from 1993-1997
Click to expand...

I imagine this would be a big reason why it's not performed on people who still have functioning bowels.
 
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think its probably something to do with the amount of bacteria's and stuff:(

docs told me there was only about a 5% acceptance rate with that transplant.

he told us that when my mum offered up her large intestine for me.... she made me cry that day.
 
Arg. Not good statistics. Maybe over time as technology improves...

It's just amazing what they can do nowadays, my grandmother has a pig
valve in her heart keeping her alive.

You'd think eventually they could make the gut transplant work.
 
In addition, I'd suspect it has to do also with the complexities, the small intestine has the very fine villi that absorb nutrients, the colon absorbs water, and the parastalsys involved seems like an intricate muscular process....I think it's just on the surface that they all appear to be merely squishy tubing that gets food from A to B.
 
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I researched this a couple months ago... they do them, but only for certain conditions. They aren't all that common either
 
From what my GI told me, because CD is an auto-immune disease, transplanting healthy intestines will still result in CD affecting them at some point after having a transplant.

Plus there can be tons of complications that go with it, not to mention rejection so if one is sick enough and their life is impaired enough from their IBD they are better off wearing a bag then risking their life with a transplant that will eventually end up with CD again at some point.

It's got to do with our immune system not functioning properly along with our genetic predisposition to get CD that makes the disease attack our intestines, it's not our intestines that are attacking but rather they are being attacked by faulty genes and immune system.

:)
 
Transplants are pretty much only done when a patient has about 2 feet of decent intestine left. You certainly can't survive with less than that so they consider it the patient's last chance for survival.
 
yeah, see if a friend will donate theirs to you. just cut out the immune system, put it into your body, and voila! new immune system!

i wish!
 
LOL, or hopefully stem cell therapy will soon become the next means of actually "treating" our disease rather than another swarm of drugs that just band-aid our disease.

With stem cell therapy (used from our own bone marrow, or that of a healthy donor) that would "repair" our immune system...actually treating the source of the disease itself basically.

:)
 
Working every day with heart and lung transplant patients I see the positives and negatives.

Basically for any transplant you have to be sick enough to need one but well enough to cope with massive surgery. Its an extremely taught tightrope that is walked by these patients.

They ALL go through psycological assessment because it can be hard getting your head around having someone elses body part inside you for life(I have seen some patients go through surgery despite this assessment and literally give up and not survive because they just cant mentally accept it). Anyone thought about a lung transplant patient coughing up someone elses sputum then?? LOL LOL Have you thought about the possibility of passing stool with elements of someone elses rubbish in it initially?? Have I just grossed you out? These are things that are realistic and not airy fairy..

All transplant patients know its a final attempt at giving some quality of life to an individual. They face knowing they may go to sleep and not come off the operating table, may not wake up post op due to severe infection and bleeding as an example, may only have months or a couple of years extra... but what price life and what is quality of life for one person wont be the same for the next?? Its a question we all ask in the environment I work in...

Transplant patients also face massive medicine regime to prevent rejection. I looked after a 27yr old woman with 2 girls under 10 when she became really ill. She went through a mechanical heart for a year which is a heck of alot of equipment being pulled along and attached to you 24/7. Then had a heart transplant. She absolutely flew through recovery and was home in a very short space of time. Your general outlook on life can have a massive impact on your health status. So are you a glass half full or glass half empty person??

Bowel transplant seems to be even more difficult in relation to the gut being so sensitive it goes into stasis or asleep. We have problems with heart operation patients guts doing just that for no specific reason and its really difficult to get it sorted. There is an unearthly feeling seeing a heart transplant and waiting for it to start beating believe me....

Both the gut and the kidneys are extrememly sensitive to change (and yes we know they can do kidney transplants now) but the gut seems to be the more elusive one to get any sort of reasonable results that would warrant setting up a decent programme like with other organs.

Just a few ponderings from my perspective of things... ;-)
 
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i was offered pig bowel as a transplant, but i turned down as i like my stoma. it was in the reasearch stage and i havent followed it through so i dont know how far it has gone.
sharon xx
 
Sharon, a pig's bowel..... suppose you could always join the police after!!!!

Oink, Oink.
 
pb4 said:
LOL, or hopefully stem cell therapy will soon become the next means of actually "treating" our disease rather than another swarm of drugs that just band-aid our disease.

With stem cell therapy (used from our own bone marrow, or that of a healthy donor) that would "repair" our immune system...actually treating the source of the disease itself basically.

:)
Click to expand...

Sounds promising. I'm also sick of band-aids. :ymad:
 
soupdragon69 said:
Anyone thought about a lung transplant patient coughing up someone elses sputum then?? LOL LOL Have you thought about the possibility of passing stool with elements of someone elses rubbish in it initially?? Have I just grossed you out? These are things that are realistic and not airy fairy..




It seems unreal that they wouldn't clean organs before transplanting them into someone with all the bacteria and all I would find it hard to believe they would simply put a donors organs into another person without it being completely sterilized...since it would obviously lead to deathly infections I'm sure.

:)
Click to expand...
 
PB4,

That is a good comment and yes they do clean the organs out! BUT I am talking about microscopic amounts nothing more. I should have clarified that!

Thanks for pointing it out.
 
pb4 said:
Check out this article, unknown cell that may aid with IBD.....

http://news.biocompare.com/News/NewsStory/250432/NewsStory.html


:)
Click to expand...

That is interesting. Since the cell they are talking about is found in the tonsils, it seems that people who have had their tonsils removed would be at a higher risk for CD. I had my tonsils removed when I was 3 years old. I wonder if there have been any studies finding a correlation between tonsillectomies and CD.
 
I don't know Greg, but I've not had mine removed nor my adnoides (sp?)...none the less this does seem somewhat promising....I hope....and lymphoid tissue in the gut also produces NK22, so it should be present there as well apparently.

:)
 
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I still have both my tonsils and appendix as well as every other part of my body. For the moment at least.
 
Tonsils I have, but no appendix. Didn't have a choice though. Already ruptured.
Hopefully I can hold on to my tonsils!
 
I know I'm jumping in late in the game here, but I heard this question brought up at a Crohn's seminar I went to, and the specialist basically said they don't do it because since we are able to live without the colon/parts of the intestines its not something the medical community would pursue.

Plus it does seem scary to me that you would inherit any bacteria issues and not to mention our immune system would just go ahead and attack the new tissue anyway.
 
Yeah, I'd rather research go towards finding a cure with these new cells
versus trying to make a transplant work.
 
i don't see why anyone would go through the trouble of getting a transplant when it has such a low success rate and is so uncommon. not unless they had an extreme case of short-gut syndrome and NEEDED more intestine to live. we can survive without the full 30 ft of our intestines, so i don't see why one would want to replace a short segment.
 
I'm just saying, clearly our organs are there for a reason. If I had the choice
(which I don't right now) I would rather have my colon replaced versus just
getting rid of it completely. A bit of intestines is one thing, but an entire organ
or feet and feet of intestines is another story.
 
i think i'd rather see my colon go than get it replaced. plenty of people have had long, happy, colon-less lives.
 

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