Organ transplantation is inevitable for patients with end organ disease as it helps them get a new lease of life. An organ transplant is necessary in an individual if one of his/her organ fails. The process involves surgical removal of any healthy organ from a person who is in the pink of health and transplantation of the same organ into a person who is undergoing transplant surgery because his/her organ has failed. Sometimes, organs are also extracted from a donor who has died.
There are several types of organ transplants, conducted to replace the diseased organs with a healthy, fully functional organ. Some of the common types of procedures in transplants speciality include lung transplant, liver transplant, hair transplant, stem cell transplant, heart transplant and kidney transplant.
The patient should follow the right steps for getting successful organ transplant. The initial step should be to get a referral from your physician and get adequately evaluated by a transplant program to assess if you are a potential candidate for getting transplantation.
Contact the transplant centre or hospital and do a research about the healthcare setting to weigh up its reputation in the market. Then, the next step is to schedule an evaluation appointment with the centre and get enlisted on the waiting list that includes the names of persons seeking an organ donation. Some of the patients who are enlisted for organ transplantation include the ones suffering from end-stage kidney disease and total heart failure.
A transplant procedure entails lots of risks and uncertainties. First off, the doctors try to match the health condition of the organ retrieved from the donor and whether it matches with the recipient. The matching may get rejected, but if it gets matched, the recipient will have to take drugs for the rest of life to help the body get immune to the new organ.
Organ transplant costs encompass, preliminary testing, the cost of surgery, post-operative recovery cost, the cost of organ and the choice of hospital and its charges. The average organ transplant costs vary from hospital to hospital and country to country. In some countries, organ donation and transplant is not legal. Therefore, the patient may have to travel to another country for organ transplantation.
It follows a surgical procedure in which hair follicles are removed from a particular part of the body of the donor and transplanted on the recipient's part of the body. Hair transplant procedure is utilized to restore eyebrows, eyelashes, chest hair, beard hair, pubic hair, and also to fill in scars. Hair transplant cost varies from country to country, but it is generally cheaper in India and Thailand than the rest of the world.
Stem cell transplant is necessary to treat some forms of cancer, including myeloma, leukaemia and lymphoma. Also, known as bone marrow transplant, this procedure uses stem cells that are collected from the bone marrow (which is now collected from the blood) of the donor and transplanted into the recipient's blood vessel. The average bone marrow transplant cost is around $80,000 in the United States.
Patients with severe coronary artery disease and end-stage heart failure undergo a heart transplant. A functioning heart is taken from a very recent deceased heart donor and is then implanted in the recipient through heart transplant surgery. It is a costly procedure and the 30-days pre-heart transplant cost and the procurement cost may vary from country to country.
A BMT (bone marrow transplant) is necessary in case of aplastic anemia in which the bone marrow does not produce sufficient blood cells for the body. The condition is mostly fatal, which is characterized by a hypocellular bone marrow and pancytopenia bone marrow. A bone marrow transplant is the best treatment of choice particularly for younger patients who can get matching sibling donors for themselves.
Thalassemia patient can get bone marrow transplantation from a compatible donor. Young children suffering from thalassemia have over 89% survival chances by getting bone marrow from a compatible donor. However, the child has to visit the clinic every week for almost 3 to 6 months post bone marrow transplantation.
Unlike allogeneic transplant that uses stem cells of the donor, autologous transplant uses self stem cells. In this procedure, damaged stem cells from chemotherapy are replaced by stem cells harvested from the patient. In the United States, the autologous transplant cost is around $350,000. However, the price may vary from state to state and country to country.
Also known as renal transplant, living donor renal transplant is better explained as genetically related or non-related transplants, which depends upon the biological relationship between the recipient and the donor. To overcome kidney diseases, kidney transplant is imperative.
When the liver function cease to continue due to liver failure or liver disease such as liver cirrhosis or liver cancer, liver transplant can save the patient. Indeed, liver transplant is the right treatment for end-stage liver disease. Liver transplant cost may go up thousands of dollars in the Unites States, however the same may cost less in India, Thailand and Singapore.