DailyDirt: No More Urban Legends Of Waking Up In A Bathtub Without Your Kidneys...
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
There are plenty of ethical issues with organ transplants and how to handle the undersupply of donors. Hopefully, medical science is getting advanced enough to grow organs and eliminate the shortage of organs for patients who need them. Here are just a few stories about organs in modern medicine.- A 6-way paired kidney transplant operation took 2 days and a handful of surgeons to complete. Software called MatchGrid identifies chains of donors and recipients that can optimize organ compatibility and significantly shorten the recipient wait list. [url]
- Researchers have grown mini-stomachs from stem cells -- technically, just the lower end of the stomach, but still. Petri-dish stomachs could help in learning how to prevent certain stomach cancers and potentially lead to stomach patches for ulcers. [url]
- Are there really vestigial organs in your body? Living without a gall bladder or appendix is not uncommon, but who gets these organs removed as a precaution? (Answer: Antarctic explorers and perhaps some astronauts.) [url]
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Filed Under: appendix, cancer, gall bladder, health, kidneys, matchgrid, organ, organ transplant, regeneration, stem cells, stomach, ulcer
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I predict that won't happen for at least another 50-100 years.
After quite a few medical breakthroughs in the early part of the 20th century, medical science has stagnated by comparison. Sure, they've developed more effective treatments for some conditions and improved things like artificial limbs and joint replacement, but what major breakthroughs have there been in the last 50 years?
I don't mean theoretical stuff that has seen limited trials and limited success, but stuff that has been proven effective and is now being used to save lives.
Have cures for any major diseases been discovered in the last 50 years? Have they figured out how to prevent cancer or heart disease or diabetes? Where's the cure for AIDS?
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Seriously? There are far more than can be listed in a little comment. But here's one that is fresh in my mind because it was in my life recently.
My mother had a stroke. She collapsed and was completely unresponsive (although she told me later that she was perfectly aware of her surroundings, she just couldn't move or speak.) Long story short, after three days of hospitalization, she's perfectly fine. Seriously, you would be completely unable to tell that she ever had a stroke.
The reason she's perfectly fine is because of two specific medical breakthroughs that happened recently: a clot-busting drug, and the ability to remove large clots from deep parts of the brain. Quite literally, if she had had the stroke just 10 or 20 years ago, she would have been massively disabled now, if she survived at all.
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