New marrow brings hope for kidney recipients

[wdlove]

Bone marrow is being transplanted from the donor to train the T Cells of the receipent. The idea is to prevent rejection of the transplanted Kidney. In the article Jennifer Searl received a Kidney transplant more than two years ago. At that point she didn't feel too lucky. The problem is that she had serious side effects from the anti-rejection drugs. She underwent this new life saving ground breaking transplant sixteen months ago at Mass General Hospital in Boston.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/01/12/new_marrow_brings_hope_for_kidney_recipients/

 

[Doctor Q]

I didn't see this post from the other day. This is an amazing development. It makes sense: a marrow transplant from your kidney donor gives you the immune system of the donor, so the kidney is not treated as a foreign body and rejected.

On the other hand, the rest of your body is a foreign body to your new marrow, so your other organs may be attacked by your new immune system, leading to graft versus host disease (GVHD) of the skin, mucous membranes, liver, joints, or other organs. Your chances are best if you have a closely matched donor (the mother in the case reported); an identical twin would be the #1 choice.

Chemo and radiation destroy your old immune system prior to transplant. It must be very hard to endure the procedure and recovery if you are already suffering from a failing kidney.

Someday, they may find another way to transplant organs more easily, but in the meantime developments like this give a lot of hope to the many people who could benefit.

 

[wdlove]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
I didn't see this post from the other day. This is an amazing development. It makes sense: a marrow transplant from your kidney donor gives you the immune system of the donor, so the kidney is not treated as a foreign body and rejected.

Someday, they may find another way to transplant organs more easily, but in the meantime developments like this give a lot of hope to the many people who could benefit.

Thank you for responding to my thread Doctor Q. There are many amazing things that are being tested currently. Stem cell research seems to be the wave of the future. To change problems on the cellular level. Being able to fix a bad gene. On a PBS story they were actually growing new organs in the lab.

Kidney disease if a devestating illness. The patient usually has to go for dialysis 3 days per week. They spend 2 - 3 hours in a chair hooked up to a dialysis machine to have their blood filtered of waste materials. Afterwards when the patients returns home, many spend hours in bed. I have had many tell me that it is such a physically draining procedure.

"Body Building" show is at the bottom of the page.

http://www.pbs.org/saf/previous.htm

 

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by wdlove
"Body Building" show is at the bottom of the page.
http://www.pbs.org/saf/previous.htm

Very interesting. Give us 100 more years and maybe we'll be able to replace whatever parts of us wear out. It gives new meaning to the phrase "body shop".

As a fan of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, I suggest that we consider the story of the Tin Woodman. Everyone knows that the Tin Woodman was a man made out of tin who rusted in the forest, but there's more to the story, most of which is revealed in the book "The Tin Woodman Of Oz", one of the 14 original Oz books.

The Tin Woodman was originally a man named Nick Chopper, who loved a munchin girl named Nimmie Amee, who was a slave of the Wicked Witch of the East. To keep Nick Chopper away, the witch enchanted his ax so he kept cutting off parts of his body, which Ku-Klip the tinsmith replaced with tin parts: legs, then arms, then head, then torso.

It turns out the same thing subsequently happened to a fellow named Captain Fyter, who became the Tin Soldier once his whole body was replaced, also by Ku-Klip, after the witch enchanted his sword. Amazingly, he too was in love with Nimmie Amee.

Both fellows lost their ability to love once their real heart was replaced with a tin one, and both of them got rusted in the rain and left Nimmie Amee heartbroken and wondering what happened to them.

Despite not being able to love, both tin men believe it is their duty to marry Nimmie Amee and they seek her out, only to discover that she is happily married to Chopfyt, a man that Ku-Klip made, using Magic Glue, out of the cast-off parts of both Nick Chopper and Captain Fyter!