Kidney Transplant
If you have advanced and permanent kidney failure, kidney transplantation may be the treatment option that allows you to live much like you lived before your kidneys failed.
A successful transplant takes a coordinated effort from your whole health care team, including your nephrologist, transplant surgeon, transplant coordinator, pharmacist and dietitian. But the most important members of your health care team are you and your family. By learning about your treatment, you can work with your health care team to give yourself the best possible results, and you can lead a full, active life.
- Kidney Failure
- How to Treat a Failed Kidney?
- Hemodialysis
- Peritoneal Dialysis
- Kidney Transplant
- Post Transplant Care
- Recovery From Surgery
Kidney Failure
The job of a kidney is to clean the blood by filtering out extra water and wastes. They also make hormones that keep your bones strong and blood healthy. When both of your kidneys fail, your body holds fluid. Your blood pressure rises. Harmful wastes build up in your body. Your body doesn't make enough red blood cells. You develop fatigue, nausea, and loss of appetite. When this happens, you need treatment to replace the work of your failed kidneys.
How to treat a failed kidney?
There are primarily three ways to treat failed kidneys:-
- Hemodialysis
- Peritoneal Dialysis
- Kidney Transplant
Hemodialysis:
What is hemodialysis?
Hemodialysis is a procedure that cleans and filters your blood. It rids your body of harmful wastes and extra salt and fluids. It also controls blood pressure and helps your body keep the proper balance of chemicals such as potassium, sodium, and chloride.
How does hemodialysis work?
Hemodialysis uses a dialyzer, or special filter, to clean your blood. The dialyzer connects to a machine. During treatment, your blood travels through tubes into the dialyzer. The dialyzer filters out wastes and extra fluids. Then the newly cleaned blood flows through another set of tubes and back into your body.
Peritoneal Dialysis
What is peritoneal dialysis?
Peritoneal dialysis is another procedure that replaces the work of your kidneys. It removes extra water, wastes, and chemicals from your body. This type of dialysis uses the lining of your abdomen to filter your blood. This lining is called the peritoneal membrane.
How does peritoneal dialysis work?
A cleansing solution, called dialysate, travels through a special tube into your abdomen. Fluid, wastes, and chemicals pass from tiny blood vessels in the peritoneal membrane into the dialysate. After several hours, the dialysate gets drained from your abdomen, taking the wastes from your blood with it. Then you fill your abdomen with fresh dialysate and the cleaning process begins again.
How do you get prepared for peritoneal dialysis?
Before your first treatment, a surgeon places a small, soft tube called a catheter into your abdomen. This catheter always stays there. It helps transport the dialysate to and from your peritoneal membrane.
Kidney Transplant :
What is kidney transplant?
Kidney transplant is a surgical procedure in which the damaged kidneys of a person are replaced with a functional kidney from a person . The new kidney performs the functions of the two failed kidneys.
Why is it done?
A kidney transplant operation is done when there is irreversible kidney failure and the patient is on dialysis. Chronic renal failure or CRF may be due to the following causes:
- Severe and uncontrollable high blood pressure
- Diabetes
- Polycystic kidney disease, when the kidney(s) are damaged due to presence of cysts
- Infection of the kidneys (pyelonephritis)
- Swelling of the filtering cells of the kidneys (glomerulonephritis).
When is the procedure NOT done?
A kidney transplant is not recommended in patients who have:
- Any disease of the heart, lung or liver
- Conditions like tuberculosis and osteomyelitis, which is an infection of the bones
- Recent history of cancer.
How does the transplant work?
A surgeon places the new kidney inside your body between your upper thigh and abdomen. The surgeon connects the artery and vein of the new kidney to your artery and vein. Your blood flows through the new kidney and makes urine, just like your own kidneys did when they were healthy. The new kidney may start working right away or may take up to a few weeks to make urine. Your own kidneys are left where they are unless they are causing infection or high blood pressure.
Preparation for Kidney Transplant:
You may receive a kidney from a member of your family. This kind of donor is called a living-related donor. You may receive a kidney from a person who has recently died. This type of donor is called a cadaver donor. Sometimes a spouse or very close friend may donate a kidney. This kind of donor is called a living unrelated donor.
It is very important for the donor's blood and tissues to closely match yours. This match will help prevent your body's immune system from fighting off, or rejecting, the new kidney. A lab will do special tests on blood cells to find out if your body will accept the new kidney.
Your Doctor’s Recommendation
The transplantation process begins when you learn that your kidneys are failing and you must start to consider your treatment options. Whether transplantation is to be among your options will depend on your specific situation. Transplantation isn’t for everyone. Your doctor may tell you that you have a condition that would make transplantation dangerous or unlikely to succeed.
Medical Evaluation
If your doctor sees transplantation as an option, the next step is a thorough medical evaluation at a transplant hospital. The pre-transplant evaluation may require several visits over the course of several weeks or even months. You’ll need to have blood drawn and x rays taken. You’ll be tested for blood type and other matching factors that determine whether your body will accept an available kidney
The medical team will want to see whether you’re healthy enough for surgery. Cancer, a serious infection, or significant cardiovascular disease would make transplantation unlikely to succeed. In addition, the medical team will want to make sure that you can understand and follow the schedule for taking medicines.
If a family member or friend wants to donate a kidney, he or she will need to be evaluated for general health and to see whether the kidney is a good match.
After the procedure:
The donor’s urine for the first day after the surgery is drained by a catheter inside the urinary bladder. This is removed after the first day and the donor may be allowed to walk after 24 hours. No dietary modifications are needed and the patient can resume eating as soon as the anaesthesia wears off. The hospital stay is usually not more than 2-3 days.
The recipient needs to stay in the hospital from 3-7 days depending on his condition. A bladder catheter is inserted which can be removed after a couple of days and the patient is generally able to eat and move about as soon as the anaesthesia wears off. The recipient is kept on medication to suppress any rejection reaction to the foreign kidney. Complete recovery usually takes a month.
Risks involved?
The risks in the surgical procedure are the same as they are in other kidney operations. There may be complications in the administration of anaesthesia. The patient may bleed during the surgery or may contract an infection. The biggest risk in a transplant operation is the risk of rejection of the foreign transplanted organ by the recipient’s body.
Are there any other complications?
Some of the complications of the procedure are:
- Infection happens in about 25% of the cases
- Major bleeding which may require blood transfusion
- Connections between the donor’s kidney and the recipient’s blood vessels that do not work properly
- Cancer which may develop in the cells of the kidney.
Post transplant Care
Long term care of the patient with a kidney transplant includes regular treatment with immunosuppressant drugs to keep your body from rejecting the new kidney. These may sometimes need to be given throughout life. However, kidney transplant is a better option than dialysis since it increases life expectancy. Donors can lead a normal life with one kidney and do not need to be on any special medication.
Recovery From Surgery
As after any major surgery, you’ll probably feel sore and groggy when you wake up. However, many transplant recipients report feeling much better immediately after surgery. Even if you wake up feeling great, you’ll need to stay in the hospital for about a week to recover from surgery, and longer if you have any complications.
Mediserve Team will be there at all times to help you take the right decisions for your treatment. There are certain guidelines that need to be followed before doing a transplant . Please feel free to write to us for further clarifications .
To receive an approximate idea of cost and other information regarding treatments, please contact us.
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Medical Treatment - Kidney Transplant