London: Patients who wait for a new kidney would never find one as their immune system would reject organs from an incompatible donor. The wait for thousands of patients for a new kidney is over.
Researchers have found a way to get the patients the needed procedure. Desensitisation, as it is called, allow the patients to accept kidneys from incompatible donors.
In a new study, doctors successfully modified patients’ immune systems to allow them to accept kidneys from incompatible donors. Patients after desensitisation, were alive for 8 years than those who were on waiting lists for a kidney or those who received the organ from a deceased donor.
Dr. Jeffery Bers, a kidney specialist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and the president of the National Kidney Foundation, ay that the new procedure has the potential to save many lives.
Desensitisation involves first filtering the antibodies out of a patient’s blood. The patient is then given an infusion of other antibodies to provide some protection while the immune system regenerates its own antibodies.
According to kidney specialists, desensitisation is cheaper than dialysis. Desensitisation costs $30,000 with the transplant costing about $100,000. But dialysis would cost costs $70,000 a year for life.
The procedure takes two weeks to complete and is performed before the transplant is done. Thus the patients must find a living donor. Doctors say that they often see situations in which relatives or even friends willingly donate, but are incompatible.
