As a competent patient with advanced cell phone dependence, the little doctor brushed a microblog before going to bed. After N years, I actually saw another piece of news. The news reported that a migrant worker found his right kidney missing after trauma surgery! Between the lines of the report, it seems to be asking: Has this disappeared kidney been [stolen]?
This reminds me of my mood when I first heard the rumor of stealing kidney before studying medicine: it was a shock, it was an anger, and it was full of justice.
Now, I have not only studied medicine, but also plunged into the world of kidney transplantation, only to find that stealing kidney is not so easy.
Where does the human kidney grow?
If you want to steal the kidney, you can’t do it without knowing where it is.
Under normal circumstances, Everyone is born with two kidneys, Commonly known as [kidney]. Take your two fists and put them down the middle of your back and on both sides of your spine. That is, the place above the waist, the fist is close to or pressed against the last rib, the left fist is slightly higher than the right fist by one or two centimeters, which is probably the position of the kidney. The kidney is connected to the large blood vessels in the body through its own blood vessels and to the bladder through the [sewer].
The reason why they are located asymmetrically is that the right kidney is pressed by the liver and people have to bow their heads under the eaves. Of course, under abnormal circumstances, people can also be born with one kidney (single kidney is absent), multiple kidneys (duplicate kidney or others), and two kidneys connected together (horseshoe kidney or others).
However, after birth, due to trauma, diseases and other reasons, only one kidney can be useful, while the kidney that loses its function will eventually slowly shrink. These atrophic kidneys, in some serious cases, B-ultrasound, CT and other medical examinations cannot be displayed, so, it may also cause the illusion of only one kidney.
Why can a person donate a kidney?
We can think of the kidney as a big factory. There are many, many workshops in it. These workshops one by one, The scientific name is nephron. A kidney, There are about a million nephrounits. Generally speaking, A person needs only a quarter of the kidney function to meet the basic urinary needs. That is to say, if one side of the kidney is broken and cut off, as long as the other side is intact, it is enough to meet the needs of the human body. This is like a redundant company layoffs, closing half of the workshops, but the other half of the workshops are actually fully capable of taking on production tasks.
This factory setting gives a living person a hope to donate kidney (living kidney transplant). Because a normal person can survive without a kidney. It’s like you were born with a spare tire. When others have a flat tire and are in distress, you can fully lend a helping hand.
Kidney donation must also be qualified.
Donating kidney is not like donating money. You must first make clear whether you are qualified. This qualification is defined in multiple ways:
The first is the legal qualification. According to our country’s < < Human Organ Transplant Regulations > > regulations, the donation of organs by living people is limited to spouses, lineal blood relatives, collateral blood relatives within three generations, and personnel who have proved the existence of help due to family ties. Then they have to go through the ethical examination and approval of the ethics committee. Perhaps you will say: [Kidney is my own, who I love to give to whom! ]
Wrong! Kidney, not you want to give, want to give can give!
Once legal provisions and ethical approval are absent, organ trading will take advantage of the huge potential benefits. This opening will become extremely difficult to manage.
In line with the legal qualification and ethical examination and approval, at the same time also matching success. Just like changing bulbs also score bayonet and screw mouth, kidney transplantation also needs to be matched, if the matching does not match, no matter how good the kidney is, it is in vain. So, walking on the street was knocked unconscious cut kidney, is it a universal standard kidney?
If the difficulty of matching is passed smoothly, can the kidney be replaced?
Of course not.
The reason for giving you a spare kidney is just in case. If your own kidney already has problems or there is a predictable risk of problems, then, on the one hand, you should leave the spare tire to yourself, and on the other hand, you should not rule out that your spare tire has been given to others and problems are gradually occurring in others.
Therefore, before determining that a person can be used as a kidney donor, it is necessary to carry out very detailed examination, especially to evaluate the function of the kidneys on both sides and the potential risk of kidney diseases (for example, diabetic patients may develop diabetic nephropathy, which is not suitable for kidney donor), etc. In short, the safety of the kidney donor himself is the most important thing.
How do I get the kidney?
Kidney donation surgery, Or kidney removal, It’s not like cutting a hole in your stomach to finish it like picking an apple. As mentioned earlier, The kidney is connected to the large blood vessels and bladder in the stomach. To take it off, We need to disconnect these connections, Sew it carefully. Otherwise, a blood leak and a urine leak are all troublesome things. In severe cases, it can be fatal. This process can be laparotomy or laparoscopy. Laparotomy is a direct manual operation. Laparoscopy is the use of high-tech instruments to act. Either way, We all need to know, Kidneys say they grow in the belly, But it’s not in the peritoneal cavity, That is, strictly speaking, we don’t say it grows in the abdominal cavity. So open the stomach, Pull open intestines to cut kidney, will increase the difficulty of the operation, at the same time open surgery incision will also choose in the place close to the kidney, rather than from the front of the stomach to make an incision. Therefore, if you cut a kidney by the way when doing abdominal surgery, under normal circumstances, no doctor is willing.
Is kidney transplantation once and for all?
Some people think that kidney transplantation is just an operation. No, it is different from cutting a double eyelid. Because there are foreign things in the body, even if the matching is perfect, there is the possibility of rejection.
Rejection, like the human body dealing with bacteria, Identify foreign objects, we must try every means to drive it away. Therefore, after kidney transplantation, patients should take anti-rejection drugs for life. At the same time, because of the immunosuppressive effect of anti-rejection drugs, the incidence of infection, tumors, etc. is higher than that of ordinary people, so we need regular follow-up visits and pay attention to daily life.
For kidney donors, after all, there is only one kidney left. More attention should be paid to physical examination than ordinary people. Routine examination every week, every month to every year after operation is necessary.
Will my kidney be stolen when I go to the hospital for surgery?
There is no well-matched kidney for what? No one will accept a kidney that is not suitable for himself or even of unknown origin, not to mention conscience, and the potential risks are difficult to estimate.
Some people say, can’t you keep it? Yes. However, according to the current technology, kidneys with cold ischemia time exceeding 12-24 hours cannot be used. Is it easy to find a matching kidney transplant within 12-24 hours and be willing to accept the suckers of kidneys of unknown origin?
A doctor takes the patient’s life and risks his career. Even if there is such a doctor, he is extremely stupid.
Moreover, there are all kinds of medical workers in the operating room who do their jobs. If they want to steal kidneys, they need to buy almost everyone. Moreover, in case of a sudden [drop-in] to borrow something, to check the progress, to watch [uninvited guests], they must not buy all of them?
The most important point is that in the current standardized process, routine examinations will be carried out before and after the operation, and medical records will also be retained. If you cut an appendix, the preoperative examination report says that [there is no difference between the two kidneys], and the operation becomes [single kidney is absent]. Even if popular science is not used, there is a problem.
Therefore, as long as you go to a regular hospital for regular treatment, you don’t need to worry about your kidney being [stolen].
Editor: trueyoung
Author: Zhou Xiaoyi
This article is exclusively authorized by the author to be used by Clove Garden and refuses any other form of reprinting.