Organ Transplantation
Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient, to replace a damaged or missing organ.
Organ transplantation is often the only treatment for end state organ failure, such as liver and heart failure. Organ transplantation is one of the great advances in modern medicine. The need for organ donors is much greater than the number of people who actually donate.
People of all ages can consider themselves potential donors, for some of the organs and tissues, it is possible to perform a transplant from a living donor.
Organs and tissues that have been successfully transplanted include:
• Liver
• Kidney
• Pancreas
• Heart
• Lung
• Intestine
• Cornea
• Middle ear
• Skin
• Bone
• Bone marrow
• Heart valves
• Connective tissue, skin, muscles
Transplantation medicine is one of the most challenging and complex areas of modern medicine. Turkish Organ Transplantation Centers (OTCs) have very high success rates both from living and deceased donors. With world-famous academic staff and specialist physicians, and health personal specialized on post organ transplantation patient care, Turkish OTCs provide service at international standards. In the centers, where the best results are achieved with all transplantation, from live or cadaver donors, liver transplants for children and adults are being performed with success.
These departments, where the organ transplantation is handled not only with the operation process, but with the cooperation of imaging units, operation room, intensive care, and in-bed patient service rooms, are also a reference center in the world.
Living Donor
The donor remains alive and donates a renewable tissue, cell, or fluid (e.g., blood, skin), or donates an organ or part of an organ in which the remaining organ can regenerate or take on the workload of the rest of the organ (primarily single kidney donation, partial donation of liver, lung lobe, small bowel). Regenerative medicine may one day allow for laboratory-grown organs, using person’s own cells via stem cells, or healthy cells extracted from the failing organs.
In Turkey, as the organ donors has not reached sufficient levels, transplantation from live donor levels reach 80%.
Life After Transplantation
The goal of an organ transplantation is to return a person to normal, active and productive life. The goal is to return both the patient and the donor to their pre-operation performance levels.
Transplants realized in Turkish medical centers have a higher rate of success in comparison the globally accepted success rates. All organ transplant patients must use medication for their lifetime in order to suppress their immune system. This is the most basic condition of treatment success. If medication is not used or used only irregularly, the immune system immediately initiates a war against the transplanted foreign organ, which may end up with the loss of the organ or even the life of the recipient.
