At the age of eight months old, young Jonathan Nunez needed a liver transplant because of his acute liver failure. Three years later, the body rejected the transplant by wasting it away until there was nothing left of it. This is exactly what Dr. Tomoaki Kato wanted. In 2006, Kato performed Jonathan’s transplant at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Instead of Jonathan dying like anyone would expect if a liver transplant wasted away, his old liver regenerated. This new and very unusual transplant surgery is only available for children that are eligible. This surgery also helps kids live normal lives without needing to take antirejection medications that can destroy the immune system and set risks for cancer. This new surgery is when part of the diseased liver is taken out and part of a donor liver is put into the body as well, unlike a traditional transplant, where the diseased organ is replaced completely by a new one. At first, the patient must take antirejection drugs, but then overtime they can stop taking it while their organ regenerates and gets rid of the transplant. This process can take more than a year, and in Jonathan’s case, 3 years. Now, working at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, Dr. Kato wants to promote this surgery to get more patients off of immunosuppressant. The surgery was first tried in Europe in the 1990s, and since then there has been mixed results. Kato believes that the key for the surgery is a child, since they have different systems. He has worked on children from ages 8 months to 8 years. Six out of seven of his patients had successful surgeries and his seventh is on its way to taking away the medications. At Kings College in London, England, 20 surgeries have been done between the ages of one and sixteen. These surgeries came out with seventeen survivors, fourteen of them rejuvenating the livers, and one needing a second transplant. Even though this surgery can work, it is very dangerous and is only available to patients more on the healthy side. Jonathan now lives a happy life in Miami, which makes others hopeful, According to Dr. Langnas, “When it works, it’s cool.”
This topic is related to science and it important because it helps save lives, without taking away opportunities from the patient. Even though the process is long and hard, it gives hope to children that they can be saved from acute liver failure. This also has to do with biology with the functions of the body and how it may not always work. The article also mentioned how 525 people under the age of 18 needed a liver transplant in the past year, which means that the world needs to help out one another and find new ways to cure the diseases.
What I thought about the article was that it was very informative, but there were also some issues I had with it. For one, the article was all over the place and was repetitive in some places. Also, it was hard to follow since bits of information were scattered around the article. What I would like to know more about is more statistics as a whole world, and not just for one doctor in certain countries.
Colter Smith
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how this review started off with a specific story. It was both surprising, pulling me into the review, as it said that the doctor wanted his patient’s liver to deteriorate, while at the same time helping to prove this story and show its effects.
I also enjoyed how this review, besides for explaining the procedure, zoomed in on a specific doctor and his theories on this new medical procedure. I was also impressed by the large amount of statistics used by this review, such as that out of 20 patients at a college in England, 14 of these surgeries were successful, but 3 patients died, which helped to show the risk of this surgery. Another example being that 525 people younger than 18 needed a liver transplant last year which, which helps to show the great potential and necessity of this technique.
I believe that in the second paragraph, which talks about the relevance of this article to the modern world, some of the phrases were repeated a number of times and a larger vocabulary could have bee used. I also think the procedure itself could have been explained a little bit better as I am slightly confused as to whether the body is finally able to accept the liver, or it slowly grows a new one while slowly destroying the old one or whether this procedure instead uses a different third idea.
I did not know that certain organs, such as livers could grow back after they are partially destroyed. This idea could most likely be applied to a large variety of organs leading to a medical revolution and ushering in a new wave of life saving techniques.
I think christina did a good job at reviewing the article "Transplants That Do Their Job, Then Fade Away". I liked the way she explained a little the way the implant fades as the old one rejuvenates itself. I also liked that she included a story of a persons encounter with this preocedure. I think in the second paragraph she could have done a better job at making the material sound a bit more interesting like in the first paragraph. Also, I think the actual procedure could have been explained in a little more detail. Prior reading this review, I did not know anything about this procedure so I enjoyed learning everything I read from this
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