The surgeon’s key aids come from animal farms
Representational image
Coimbatore: Here’s a little-known non-vegetarian medical fact. In most hospital operation theatres, the surgeons don’t just depend on scalpels, scissors and other tools. The surgeon’s key aids come from animal farms.
The connective tissue of a sheep’s intestine is used as surgical suture in orthopedic surgeries. The jugular vein of a buffalo is used to replace the damaged arteries of children. The cow’s valves are harvested and transplanted on to human hearts. The next possible arrivals in the operation theatres are GM pigs, which city surgeons hope will metamorphose the organ transplant paradigm.
The GM pigs are being researched to modify their DNA structure to match the DNA of the humans in the West. This is being done to ensure less risk of rejection when the animal organ is being transplanted to humans.
From genetically modified veggies, it is now genetically modified pigs. The pigs are being cultured and the research is in progress. Liver, kidney and heart that are harvested from these GM pigs can be transplanted to human beings with less risk of rejection. The DNA structure of these micro pigs is totally modified to resemble a human DNA.
Harvesting organs of the GM pigs will help in effectively managing the dearth of organs, hopes Dr Prashant Vaijyanath, director of cardiac surgery Kovai Medical Centre and Hospital. Currently, KMCH is using cow’s valves to replace damaged heart valves.
The procedure of using animal valves to human heart is called xenograft. The bovine valve is chemically treated for transplantation so that the human body typically responds positively to this procedure because of the similarities in tissue composition. The pericardium or the covering of the heart is also used as patch to plug the holes in the heart. Similarly the jugular vein of a buffalo is used to replace a diseased or a damaged artery among children, Dr Vaijayanth added.
As for orthopedics, catgut suture, which is a surgical suture made out of the connective tissues taken out of the intestine of sheep (also called the catgut), said Dr S. Rajasabapathy, chairman of department of plastic surgery, Ganga hospital.
Chairman of K.G. hospital, Dr G.Baktavatsalam said that the bio prosthetic valve or the animal valve is preferred to the mechanical valve or metal valve in surgeries even as the price of both these valves is almost the same (between Rs 30,000 and Rs 40,000). “This is because the metal valve tends to rub with the other organs and get infected and bacteria tend to settle in millions”. Also a metal valve needs to be replaced in 10 to 15 years while it is not necessary in case of animal valves, he said.
Tamil Nadu reels under organ short supply:
Even as the awareness for organ donation is growing and the grief counsellors at the hospitals convince the relatives to donate the organs of the brain dead patients, the demand-supply gap is on the rise. And the GM pigs that could provide a near-human organ is anticipated as the next best alternative to human organs to bridge the gap.
In a country of 123 crore people, two lakh patients die every year due to kidney failure, two lakh patients due to heart failure and another 4 lakh patients from liver failure.
These patients require alternative organs, which are usually harvested from a brain dead victim. Besides cadaver donors, organs are also harvested out of a relative as a living donor. Parents, son, daughter or spouse, can donate an organ without any detriment to his or her health. But it has been tough to keep the demand-supply balance, said
chairman of K.G. hospital Dr G Baktavatsalam.
According to Tamil Nadu’s organ sharing registry, the majority of deceased donors as per 2013 statistics were between 21 and 40 years and 16 per cent of the total donors were between 41 and 50. As for the gender, 82 percent of the donors were male and 18 per cent female.
This is because most road accident victims are male. As for living donors, it is just the reverse with 65 to 75 per cent of donors being females and, interestingly, a majority of them are wives donating to their spouses. Though there is a significant demand for the organs in India in general and Tamil Nadu specifically, the state has done phenomenally well.
In the first quarter of 2009, as per the transplant authority of Tamil Nadu stats, the state has had 14 cadaver donors that works out to a rate of 0.8 per million population per year, several times that of the country as a whole.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
Next Story
