Why do organ recipients need to be a match but have to take anti rejection meds for the rest of their lives?
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You’d think we’d have synthetic kidneys by now. My friend recently had one, been on the list for several years in his late 20’s, doing daily dialysis. I didn’t know these are essentially going to fail him again in a short span of time. That makes everything feel so bleak now. I thought great he’s finally going to be able to be normal again only to realize he’s going to have go through it all again not that long from now 🙁
Because not all matches are guaranteed or last forever, you body may still reject the organ years in
Because there‘s not just one type of immunosupressants and rejections.
There are a ton of different things that can cause your immune system to reject an organ. A „match“ just means the amount of those factors is rather low, so immunosupressants can prevent the rejection.
The theoretical perfect match, where your body accepts it as its own doesnt exist. Even identical twins can reject each others organs. Only lab-grown organs from your own cells can be implanted without immunosupressants. Those are currently limited tl simple things tho, for example cartilage in a joint (i have had my kneecaps cartilage replaced)
Furthermore immunosupressants come in various groups, all of which only block certain parts of the immune system. If you have a really good match your medications only need to block some part of your immune system, so it‘s not as compromised.
For a organ that is not a match at all, the body goes *”Thats not supposed to be here! GET IT OUT!”*
But if the organ is a match, the body is like *”Thats… not supposed to be here… right?”* and it kind of just keeps looking at it trying to decide if it wants to kick it out.
My friend had one of her dad’s kidneys which lasted over 20 years. Eventually it failed so another friend offered to donate his kidney. A couple of days before the op , there were suddenly issues with her antibodies so it was all cancelled. She’s now back on dialysis, waiting for another kidney. She also lost both her parents to cancer and was actually diagnosed with cancer too. It’s been heartbreaking to see her go through so much but she’s the strongest person I’ve ever known.
Your body will end up rejecting the new organ eventually regardless of being a match or not. It’s a matter of when and how long it takes. Anti rejection meds slow down this process
Are we cloning our body parts yet?
I’m 12 years into this kidney and hope that one day I can have one grown from my own steam cells and the medication is both expensive and has side effects too
Before long though we’ll be able to decellularize organs and grow new cell structures from people’s own DNA to create organs that won’t be recognized as foreign.
You will only be a 100% match with an organ if it’s 100% genetically identical to yours, so the only possible 100% guaranteed with 0% rejections are clones or genetically identical twins.
Any other would have rejections(small or great) and this means that majority of ttansplanted organs will be rejected by the recpient body sooner or later. Anti rejection pills are to lessen the chances and magnituse of organ damage due to rejection somewhere along the line.
To make it short, checking for “matching” donor and recipient determines the immediate success of the operation. Taking anti rejection meds keeps the transplant successful.
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