Dr. Pratik Das, MBBS, MD (General Medicine), DNB (Nephrology), DM (Nephrology), Adult Kidney Transplant, Nephrology, Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, Kolkata
Kidney transplantation means putting a kidney inside the body of a patient suffering from kidney failure. Kidney failure means if kidney function goes below 15 ml/min GFR. Then life cannot be sustained without support from outside. This support may come either from the artificial machine called dialysis that performs the function of the kidney or it can come from a newly normally functioning kidney that can be put inside the body of a patient suffering from kidney failure. This is called renal replacement treatment. Both of them together are called renal replacement therapy.
As the kidney is a vital organ one cannot live without a kidney like other vital organs such as the brain, heart, and liver. So, when a kidney fails, the patient has to put something additional to sustain life. Therefore, kidney transplantation is the best way to sustain life in patients who suffer from complete kidney failure. Kidney failure usually happens due to long-standing diabetes, hypertension, efferent glomerular nephritis, kidney stones, kidney disease infection, etc. Thus, kidney transplantation helps in getting a patient a long, healthy, and better quality of life with normal well-functioning kidneys.
The process of kidney transplantation is slightly complex. For that, one needs to have a donor as everybody knows transplantation of human organs is considered to be one of the miracles of the last century. This is going against nature’s practice because here somebody’s organ is put inside another’s body which should be compatible with someone who needs it so that patient can survive. This can be done with the help of two persons; one who will donate and one person who will accept. It is called a kidney donor and kidney recipient respectively.
Kidney donations are also possible for a patient who is suffering from irreversible damage to the brain. If the body of a brain-dead person is kept on a ventilator, the heart may continue to beat for 2-3 days and keep vital organs such as the liver and kidney alive for this time period. These organs can be surgically removed for donation. The family or next of kin will be asked if they want to donate his/her organs along with the permission of the hospital and state authority or government authority. Thus, by that one patient who is suffering from brain death and whose family wishes to donate two kidneys, they can save the lives of two patients because one kidney placement is enough for survival. This is the one way of getting a kidney transplant.
This is a common practice worldwide. But in a country like India, these practices are slightly in the developing phase only. In some areas, these practices are widespread, and in some areas, these practices are slightly fewer. This is one of the important ways of getting kidneys, further more and more awareness is required.